tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/gender-discrimination-7227/articlesGender discrimination – The Conversation2017-12-07T10:32:54Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/886602017-12-07T10:32:54Z2017-12-07T10:32:54ZSix ways (and counting) that big data systems are harming society<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197934/original/file-20171206-917-p41fii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;rect=390%2C161%2C2245%2C1517&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GarryKillian/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is growing consensus that with big data comes great <a href="https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/books/big-data/">opportunity</a>, but also <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/2016_0504_data_%20discrimination.pdf">great</a> <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmsctech/468/46802.htm">risk</a>.</p>
<p>But these risks are not getting enough political and public attention. One way to better appreciate the risks that come with our big data future is to consider how people are already being negatively affected by uses of it. At Cardiff University’s <a href="https://datajusticelab.org/">Data Justice Lab</a>, we decided to record the harms that big data uses have already caused, pulling together concrete examples of harm that have been referenced in previous work so that we might gain a better big picture appreciation of where we are heading.</p>
<p>We did so in the hope that such a record will generate more debate and intervention from the public into the kind of big data society, and future we want. The following examples are a condensed version of our recently published <a href="https://datajusticelab.org/data-harm-record/">Data Harm Record</a>, a running record, to be updated as we learn about more cases.</p>
<h2>1. Targeting based on vulnerability</h2>
<p>With big data comes new ways to socially sort with increasing precision. By combining multiple forms of data sets, a lot can be learned. This has been called “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Surveillance-as-Social-Sorting-Privacy-Risk-and-Automated-Discrimination/Lyon/p/book/9780415278737">algorithmic profiling</a>” and raises concerns about how little people know about how their data is collected as they search, communicate, buy, visit sites, travel, and so on. </p>
<p>Much of this sorting goes under the radar, although the practices of data brokers have been getting <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/data-brokers-call-transparency-accountability-report-federal-trade-commission-may-2014/140527databrokerreport.pdf">attention</a>. In her testimony to the US Congress, World Privacy Forum’s <a href="https://www.worldprivacyforum.org/2013/12/testimony-what-information-do-data-brokers-have-on-consumers/">Pam Dixon</a> reported finding data brokers selling lists of rape victims, addresses of domestic violence shelters, sufferers of genetic diseases, sufferers of addiction and more.</p>
<h2>2. Misuse of personal information</h2>
<p>Concerns have been raised about how credit card companies are using personal details like where someone shops or whether or not they have paid for <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/big-data-tool-inclusion-or-exclusion-understanding-issues/160106big-data-rpt.pdf">marriage counselling</a> to set rates and limits. One <a href="http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1122&amp;context=yjolt">study</a> details <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/TheLaw/gma-answers-credit-card-companies-">the case</a> of a man who found his credit rating reduced because American Express determined that others who shopped where he shopped had a poor repayment history. </p>
<p>This event, in 2008, was an early big data example of “creditworthiness by association” and is linked to ongoing practices of determining value or trustworthiness by drawing on big data to make predictions about people. </p>
<h2>3. Discrimination</h2>
<p>As corporations, government bodies and others make use of big data, it is key to know that discrimination can and is happening – both <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1d17/4f0e3c391368d0f3384a144a6c7487f2a143.pdf">unintentionally</a> and intentionally. This can happen as algorithmically driven systems offer, deny or mediate access to services or opportunities to people differently.</p>
<p>Some are raising <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2376209">concerns</a> about how new uses of big data may negatively influence people’s abilities get housing or insurance – or to access education or get a job. A 2017 <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/minority-neighborhoods-higher-car-insurance-premiums-white-areas-same-risk">investigation</a> by ProPublica and Consumer Reports showed that minority neighbourhoods pay more for car insurance than white neighbourhoods with the same risk levels. <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing">ProPublica</a> also shows how new prediction tools used in courtrooms for sentencing and bonds “are biased against blacks”. Others raise concerns about how big data processes make it easier to target particular groups and <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/">discriminate against them</a>.</p>
<p>And there are numerous <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newzealand-passport-error/new-zealand-passport-robot-tells-applicant-of-asian-descent-to-open-eyes-idUSKBN13W0RL">reports</a> of facial recognition systems that have <a href="https://www.pcworld.com/article/209708/Is_Microsoft_Kinect_Racist.html">problems</a> <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/12/22/hp.webcams/index.html">identifying people</a> who are not white. As argued <a href="https://www.poetofcode.com/">here</a>, this issue becomes increasingly important as facial recognition tools are adopted by government agencies, police and security systems. </p>
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<span class="caption">Facial recognition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zapp2Photo/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>This kind of discrimination is not limited to skin colour. One <a href="https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2015/july/online-ads-research.html">study</a> of Google ads found that men and women are being shown different job adverts, with men receiving ads for higher paying jobs more often. And data scientist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/01/how-algorithms-rule-our-working-lives">Cathy O’Neil</a> has raised concerns about how the personality tests and automated systems used by companies to sort through job applications may be using health information to disqualify certain applicants based on their history.</p>
<p>There are also concerns that the use of crime prediction software can lead to the <a href="https://weaponsofmathdestructionbook.com/">over-monitoring of poor communities</a>, as O’Neil also found. The inclusion of nuisance crimes such as vagrancy in crime prediction models distorts the analysis and “creates a pernicious feedback loop” by drawing more police into the areas where there is likely to be vagrancy. This leads to more punishment and recorded crimes in these areas. </p>
<h2>4. Data breaches</h2>
<p>There are numerous examples of data breaches in recent years. These can lead to identity theft, blackmail, reputation damage and distress. They can also create a lot of anxiety about future effects. One <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2885638">study</a> discusses these issues and points to several examples: </p>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/06/opm-breach-security-privacy-debacle/">Office of Policy Management breach</a> in Washington in 2015 leaked people’s fingerprints, background check <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/06/opm-breach-security-privacy-debacle/">information</a>, and analysis of security risks. </li>
<li>In 2015 <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/ashley-madison-19665">Ashley Madison</a>, a commercial website billed as enabling extramarital affairs, was breached and more than 25 gigabytes of company data including user details were leaked.</li>
<li>The 2013 <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/098063db-9e01-3a66-b968-298974ccb6ce">Target breach</a> in the US resulted in leaked credit card information, bank account numbers and other financial data.</li>
</ul>
<h2>5. Political manipulation and social harm</h2>
<p><a href="https://web.stanford.edu/%7Egentzkow/research/fakenews.pdf">Fake news</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/11/election-bots/506072/">bots</a> and <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles">filter bubbles</a> have been in the news a lot lately. They can lead to social and political harm as the information that informs citizens is manipulated, potentially leading to misinformation and undermining democratic and political processes as well as social well-being. </p>
<p>One recent <a href="http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/publishing/working-papers/computational-propaganda-worldwide-executive-summary/">study</a> by researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute details the diverse ways that people are trying to use social media to manipulate public opinion across nine countries.</p>
<h2>6. Data and system errors</h2>
<p>Big data blacklisting and watch-lists in the US have wrongfully identified individuals. It has been <a href="http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/flr/vol67/iss5/5/">found</a> that being wrongfully identified in this case can negatively affect employment, ability to travel – and in some cases lead to wrongful detention and deportation.<br>
In Australia, for example, there have been investigations into the government’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jun/21/senate-inquiry-calls-for-centrelink-robo-debt-system-to-be-suspended-until-fixed">automated debt recovery system</a> after numerous complaints of errors and unfair targeting of vulnerable people. And American academic <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/want-cut-welfare-theres-app/">Virginia Eubanks</a> has detailed the system failures that devastated the lives of many in Indiana, Florida and Texas at great cost to taxpayers. The automated system errors led to people losing access to their Medicaid, food stamps and benefits.</p>
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<span class="caption">Data stored in centres such as this isn’t necessarily safe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>We need to learn from these harms. There are a range of individuals and <a href="https://www.fatml.org/">groups</a> developing <a href="https://www.ajlunited.org/">ideas</a> about how <a href="https://ainowinstitute.org/">data harms</a> can be <a href="http://bdes.datasociety.net/">prevented</a>. Researchers, civil society organisations, government bodies and activists have all, in different ways, identified the need for greater transparency, accountability, systems of oversight and due process, and the means for citizens to interrogate and intervene in the big data processes that affect them. </p>
<p>What is needed is the public pressure and the political will and effort to ensure this happens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88660/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Redden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The risks of big data are not getting enough attention.Joanna Redden, Lecturer in Critical Data Studies, Co-Director Data Justice Lab, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/861922017-10-24T22:39:28Z2017-10-24T22:39:28ZGovernment should expand student placements into social sector<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191729/original/file-20171024-30590-1mho6r2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If the government expanded the new $73 million Student Work-Integrated Learning program to all students it could help tackle Canada’s most intractable social problems — such as homelessness, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, affordable housing, social cohesion and intercultural understanding.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Employment and Social Development Canada is spending $73 million over the next four years to create 10,000 paid work-placements for university, college and polytechnic students from across the country. </p>
<p>This <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/work-integrated-learning.html">Student Work-Integrated Learning program</a> (SWLIP) <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberals-target-student-skills-gap-1.4267340">sounds like a good thing for students</a>. But it’s a selective band of students and companies that will benefit. The students must be from science, technology, engineering and mathematics related disciplines (STEM) or from business. This narrow focus raises serious questions of equity, both for students and for Canada’s extensive social and not-for-profit sector.</p>
<p>I am the director of a community service-learning (CSL) program at the University of Alberta. CSL is unique among experiential learning activities in that we partner specifically with not-for-profit and community-based organizations, as well as with social enterprises and government departments. </p>
<p>I am concerned that the good intentions of SWILP to link higher education to industry will support more students and companies that least need the assistance.</p>
<h2>Discriminating against women</h2>
<p>The narrow focus on STEM and business students amounts to discrimination on the basis of gender, even if it’s unintended.</p>
<p>Many of us wish to see more students identifying as women registered in STEM disciplines. But the reality is that SWILP disproportionately advantages male identifying students. <a href="https://www.caut.ca/resources/almanac/3-students">The Canadian Association of University Teachers’ (CAUT) most recent data</a>, for instance, reveals that in 2014/15 there were only 22 per cent of women undergraduates studying in the fields of architecture, engineering and related technologies. And just one quarter of the students in mathematics, computer and information sciences identified as female. </p>
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<span class="caption">There are still relatively few women studying in STEM disciplines at the undergraduate level.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>This stands in marked contrast to other fields. Humanities disciplines see 62 per cent of registered undergraduates identifying as women. In social and behavioural sciences and law, it is 63 per cent. In health sciences, it’s 72 per cent and in education, 77 per cent. </p>
<p>A STEM bias clearly leads to gender bias. Thankfully, undergraduate students identifying as female are a little better represented in business, management and public administration.</p>
<h2>Supporting the privileged</h2>
<p>A STEM bias in the work-integrated learning program is also likely to reward more privileged students. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aDsVd5v1TI">Research from the United States</a> and <a href="http://www.sciencecampaign.org.uk/resource/ImprovingDiversityinSTEM2014.html">from the U.K.</a> has noted that undergraduates in engineering, for instance, are more likely to be from families where parents or caregivers have achieved a university or college degree. They are less likely to be from low socioeconomic status and “Black and ethnic minority” backgrounds. </p>
<p>In Canada, it seems a safe bet to say that students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds and Indigenous students would benefit little, overall, from SWILP.</p>
<p>These inequitable outcomes seem hard to square with the federal government’s “<a href="http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca/gba-acs/index-en.html">gender based analysis plus</a>” (GBA+) lens. This is supposed to identify the often differing ways that women, men and gender-diverse people experience government policies and programs. </p>
<h2>Excluding the not-for-profit sector</h2>
<p>The exclusion of the not-for-profit or social sector and its organizations from the wage subsidies is a third inequity of the SWLIP program. </p>
<p>The industry sectors that will benefit from these students’ subsidized labour are clear from the bodies coordinating the program: Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC), Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC), Canadian Council for Aviation and Aerospace (CCAA), Environmental Careers Organization of Canada (ECO Canada) and Biotalent Canada. </p>
<p>Firms in these industries stand to receive government subsidies up to $5,000 of the student’s wage. This goes up to $7,000 for students from Indigenous or newcomer backgrounds, female STEM students and students with disabilities. In Ontario, the <a href="http://www.tfsa.ca/aspire/">banking sector has also been a beneficiary</a> of work-integrated learning programs.</p>
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<span class="caption">Students from the University of Alberta work on a Community Service-Learning project.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>This selective industry support seems short-sighted, given the vast contributions the not-for-profit sector has provided to Canadian society and the country’s economy. Although the data is more than a decade old, at last count, the not-for-profit sector in Canada employed more than two million people and engaged 13 million volunteers every year. </p>
<p>Across the country, the sector also accounts for $106 billion — or eight per cent of the GDP. It is larger than the automotive or manufacturing industries. In Alberta alone, not-for-profits employed 417,000 people and had revenues of more than $29 billion. </p>
<p>The social sector is sophisticated and advanced, growing and in need of high-quality students from universities, colleges and polytechnics.</p>
<h2>Let’s fund social sector rejuvenation</h2>
<p>Community Service-Learning programs across Canada work with instructors and students from many disciplines, including those within the humanities, fine arts, social sciences, education, native studies and yes, also with some students from STEM and business. </p>
<p>Technically, the definition of work-integrated learning used by Employment and Social Development Canada includes CSL within the scope of eligible activities. But most CSL students and community partners are excluded from government support under the program.</p>
<p>All Canadian post-secondary students deserve opportunities equivalent to those offered to STEM and business students. </p>
<p>And Canada’s social sector needs the rejuvenation that talented students with social innovation skills would bring. It needs these students to tackle Canada’s most intractable social problems — such as homelessness, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, affordable housing, social cohesion and intercultural understanding.</p>
<p>Thankfully, there are some voices emerging, from Canadian students to provincial governments, <a href="http://www.casa-acae.com/students_excited_to_see_more_work_placements_coming_for_those_in_stem_and_business">arguing for the expansion of the SWILP program</a>. They need our support.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86192/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr David Peacock receives funding for research with the Aligning Institutions for Community Impact working group of the Community First Impacts of Community Engagement Partnership Grant project. </span></em></p>A new government program will create 10,000 work placements for undergraduates in only business and STEM subjects. Why not fund students to innovate in the social sector too?Dr David Peacock, Executive Director Community Service-Learning, University of AlbertaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/843492017-10-17T14:50:47Z2017-10-17T14:50:47ZStatelessness affects millions in Africa. Madagascar is tackling the problem<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188520/original/file-20171003-12146-1w57tu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Madagascar is taking steps towards addressing statelessness with a new nationality law.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Three years ago the United Nations took steps to try and address the issue of statelessness by putting in place <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/protection/statelessness/54621bf49/global-action-plan-end-statelessness-2014-2024.html">a 10-point plan</a> that aims to reduce the number of people who are not recognised as a national by any state. </p>
<p>The exact number of stateless people isn’t known. The UNHCR <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/statelessness-around-the-world.html">estimates</a> that there are at least 10 million in the world – of which approximately one third are children. Though numbers have been decreasing (the number of stateless people <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2007/5/464dca3c4/qa-worlds-15-million-stateless-people-need-help.html">in 2007</a> was 15 million) more needs to be done.</p>
<p>Apart from a sense of identity, belonging to a state is crucial to a person’s <a href="https://www.unhcr.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/preventing_and_reducing_statelessness.pdf">ability to</a> access education, healthcare and fully participate in political processes. Without a nationality, individuals don’t have the right to vote or the unrestricted right to enter and live in a country under international law. Stateless people therefore end up without any residence status or, worse, in prolonged detention. </p>
<p>Statelessness happens for a number of reasons. It can be the result of policies that aim to exclude people deemed to be outsiders (as a result of ethnicity or religion), in spite of their ties to a particular country. This has happened <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/WRGS/RelatedMatters/OtherEntities/OSJIChildrenNationalityFactsheet.pdf">in Eritrea and Ethiopia</a>. It also occurs when there is large scale displacement – the <a href="http://www.refworld.org/docid/58594d114.html">estimated</a> stateless population in Côte d’Ivoire, for example, is 700,000, many of whom were migrants of Burkinabé descent and not eligible for Ivorian nationality after the country’s independence from France in 1960.</p>
<p>But one of the <a href="http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/50c1f9562.pdf">most common causes</a> of statelessness is gender discrimination. In Africa this comes in various forms, for example when women can’t pass on their nationality to their spouse. This is the case in some 25 countries <a href="http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/54cb3c8f4.pdf">on the continent</a>. Or <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/WRGS/RelatedMatters/OtherEntities/OSJIChildrenNationalityFactsheet.pdf">when children</a> are denied their mother’s (and father’s) nationality. This often happens when a child is born out of wedlock. </p>
<p>The Maputo protocol, a specific protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights to address the rights of women, itself doesn’t seem to challenge these issues. In article (h) <a href="http://www.achpr.org/files/instruments/women-protocol/achpr_instr_proto_women_eng.pdf">it states</a> that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a woman and a man shall have equal rights, with respect to the nationality of their children except where this is contrary to a provision in national legislation… </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Madagascar is one of <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/WRGS/RelatedMatters/OtherEntities/OSJIChildrenNationalityFactsheet.pdf">only a few</a> countries in Africa to have taken concrete steps to address this problem. Earlier this year it passed a <a href="http://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Madagascar-Loi-n2016-038.pdf">new nationality law</a> that guarantees the equal right of citizens, regardless of their gender, to confer their nationality on their children. In doing so, it <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2017/2/589453e67/madagascar-unhcr-welcomes-new-law-giving-men-women-equal-rights-transfer.html">became the first</a> country in Africa, since the UNHCR action plan’s conception, to give women the same right as men to pass on their nationality to their children.</p>
<h2>Madagascar’s case</h2>
<p>The exact number of stateless people in Madagascar is unknown, although the UNHCR <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/dimitrina-petrova/in-madagascar-reforming-nationality-law-advances-social-and-econo">puts the</a> figure at up to 100,000 in a country with 24 million inhabitants. By comparison, the number of stateless people in Kenya, with a population of about 47 million people, is <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/ke/stateless-persons">estimated</a> to be 18,500. </p>
<p>Madagascar’s original nationality laws were a product of its colonial history. Colonised by the French <a href="http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ad26">from</a> 1896 to 1960, laws were put in place that were discriminatory along both gender and ethnic lines. Not only <a href="http://www.institutesi.org/worldsstateless17.pdf">did they</a> deny Malagasy women the right to confer nationality on their children and spouses, but individuals were <a href="http://www.institutesi.org/worldsstateless17.pdf">often denied</a> citizenship documents by authorities who claimed that their names didn’t “sound” Malagasy. This was <a href="https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/11982/MA">particularly</a> the case for the Karana (a minority of Indo-Pakistani origin who have lived in Madagascar since before independence in 1960) or those with Comorian origins.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Madagascar-Loi-n2016-038.pdf">new nationality law</a> does not permit Malagasy
women to confer their nationality to their non-national spouses (as Malagasy men can), however allows both spouses and children to retain their nationality if a partner or a parent loses theirs. Due to the recent passing of this law, its impact on statelessness is not yet evident. </p>
<h2>More to be done</h2>
<p>But there are still improvements to be made. </p>
<p>Madagascar hasn’t signed up to key legal pillars for the abolition of statelessness – these are the 1990 <a href="http://www.achpr.org/instruments/child/">African Charter on the Right of the Child</a>, which states that “every child has the right to acquire a nationality” and the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/wp-content/uploads/1954-Convention-relating-to-the-Status-of-Stateless-Persons_ENG.pdf">1954 Convention</a> on the Status of Stateless Persons as well as the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/wp-content/uploads/1961-Convention-on-the-reduction-of-Statelessness_ENG.pdf">1961 Convention</a> on Reduction on Statelessness. The ratification of these two legal instruments would tie Madagascar to internationally recognised standards of protection. The conventions <a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/why-convention-statelessness-matters">also provide</a> guidelines for states, with respect to policies that ought to be adopted to minimise statelessness. </p>
<p>The nationality law also hasn’t taken steps to remove discrimination against women. Malagasy women <a href="http://equalnationalityrights.org/news/78-madagascar-reforms-its-nationality-law-guaranteeing-mothers-independent-right-to-confer-nationality-on-children">are denied</a> the right to confer nationality on spouses, a right which is reserved for Malagasy men. This <a href="http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CCPR%2fC%2fMDG%2fCO%2f4&amp;Lang=en">creates</a> statelessness as women can’t give their nationality to a foreign or stateless husband and to any adopted children.</p>
<p>Madgascar’s new reforms nonetheless serve as an example for other African countries that are experiencing the same kind of discrimination. West Africa, for instance, recently adopted a regional action plan to help the approximately 1 million people without a nationality. It includes <a href="http://www.institutesi.org/stateless_bulletin_2017-05.pdf">encouraging</a> the adoption of new laws, the issuing of identity papers and better data to manage situations which could result in statelessness.</p>
<p>It’s still early days for the plan and only time will tell how well it does. But the issue of gender discrimination will be key.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84349/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cristiano D&#39;Orsi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For many years, statelessness in Madagascar was spurred by racial and gender discrimination.Cristiano D'Orsi, Research Fellow and Lecturer at the South African Research Chair in International Law (SARCIL), University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/821902017-08-08T00:59:03Z2017-08-08T00:59:03ZAffirmative action around the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181263/original/file-20170807-25576-1vrldo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Educafro, a Brazilian black activist movement, protested in 2012 to demand more affirmative action programs for higher education.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Eraldo Peres</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As reports have surfaced of the Trump administration’s intent to <a href="http://time.com/4883793/justice-department-college-admissions-affirmative-action/">investigate affirmative action admissions</a> in higher education, the debate over whether and how race should be considered in college admissions has emerged with renewed vigor.</p>
<p>In the past four years, United States Supreme Court cases like <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2013/12-682">Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action</a> and <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2015/14-981">Fisher v. University of Texas-Austin</a> have addressed this debate head on. </p>
<p>In what The New York Times called “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/opinion/racial-equality-loses-at-the-court.html">a blinkered view on race in America</a>,” justices in the 2014 Schuette case ruled 6-2 (with Justice Elena Kagan recusing herself) that voters could eliminate affirmative action policies in state public education. Two years later, however, in the Fisher case, they ruled that the University of Texas-Austin’s affirmative action policy was constitutional, affirming that the goal of a diverse student body within selective colleges and universities is a “compelling interest” in the U.S. </p>
<p>Now it has emerged that President Trump’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/us/politics/asian-americans-complaint-prompted-justice-inquiry-of-college-admissions.html">Justice Department will be investigating</a> a yet-to-be-decided complaint challenging Harvard University’s affirmative action admissions policies, brought by a coalition of Asian-American groups. </p>
<p>So, is affirmative action in higher education on its way out? If you look beyond the U.S. and take a global perspective, the answer is no.</p>
<h2>A global perspective</h2>
<p>Our research has shown that about <a href="https://www.crcpress.com/Affirmative-Action-Matters-Creating-opportunities-for-students-around-the/JENKINS-Moses/p/book/9780415750127">one-quarter of the world’s countries</a> have some form of affirmative action for student admissions into higher education. Many of these programs have emerged over the last 25 years. </p>
<p>These policies may go by various names – affirmative action, reservations, alternative access, positive discrimination – but all are efforts to increase the numbers of underrepresented students in higher education. </p>
<p>A wide variety of institutions and governments on six continents have programs to expand admission of students from minority groups on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, class, geography or type of high school. Several use a combination of these categories.</p>
<p>And given that U.S. policies are older than most, much of the cutting-edge thinking on affirmative action is now coming from other parts of the world.</p>
<h2>Affirmative action around the world</h2>
<p>Though <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1979/76-811">affirmative action policies as we know them</a> have been in place in U.S. higher education since 1978, they are not the oldest: <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Identity-and-Identification-in-India-Defining-the-Disadvantaged/Jenkins/p/book/9780415560627">India’s policies for lower-caste students</a> take that prize. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/1181733/next_twenty_five_years">South Africa’s many, and varied, alternative access programs</a> not only admit underrepresented students – especially black female students – but they also provide special courses and mentoring to facilitate those students’ success. </p>
<p>The French are even more reluctant than many Americans to consider race directly, but some selective institutions have increased students of color by <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/one-french-schools-secret-for-making-affirmative-action-work/255612/">targeting neighborhoods or particular schools located in priority education areas</a>. Areas are classified as Zones d’Education Prioritaires – priority education zones – based on several criteria, including high percentages of immigrant students for whom French is a second language, students performing below grade level and low-income students. Students from these zones are eligible to compete to be part of special admissions programs, which are designed to give them greater access to selective higher education.</p>
<p>India is less coy about who is being targeted, coining the rather blunt term “other backward classes” as an official designation for one set of recent beneficiaries of affirmative action in higher education. India continues to recognize the importance of caste discrimination, but also <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Identity-and-Identification-in-India-Defining-the-Disadvantaged/Jenkins/p/book/9780415560627">includes economic criteria</a> when defining other backward classes. They exclude, for example, individuals whose family income or property exceeds certain limits. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-19188610">Brazil has been developing affirmative action programs</a> in its most prestigious public universities over the past two decades. The issue is often framed by human rights and social justice concerns; the Brazilian government first introduced the potential need for affirmative action as a “right thing to do” after years of denial of racial inequalities in the country.</p>
<h2>Beyond race</h2>
<p>Whereas the earliest forms of affirmative action focused on race and ethnicity, programs that started more recently are likely to include women. The inclusion of women has been particularly pervasive in the wave of policies that emerged around the world in the 1990s and 2000s. Affirmative action for women is now <a href="https://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/ihe/article/view/5672">the most prevalent form of affirmative action</a> for students in higher education. </p>
<p>Countries that have some kind of affirmative action related to gender in higher education admissions are now <a href="https://www.crcpress.com/Affirmative-Action-Matters-Creating-opportunities-for-students-around-the/JENKINS-Moses/p/book/9780415750127">spread across world regions</a>, and include eight countries in Africa, seven in Europe and four in North America and the Caribbean.</p>
<p>Affirmative action based on geography (the place a student comes from) appeals to policymakers reluctant to give race, ethnicity or caste such a prominent and explicit role. Such policies are now catching on around the world: In addition to France, universities in <a href="http://www.ugc.ac.lk/downloads/admissions/local_students/Admission%20to%20Undergraduate%20Courses%20of%20the%20Universities%20in%20Sri%20Lanka%202011_2012.pdf">Sri Lanka</a>, for example, use geographic district as a targeted category because it’s less controversial than ethnicity or language.</p>
<h2>Looking beyond US borders</h2>
<p>In short, affirmative action is alive and well – and on the rise – around the world. Indeed, some of the most creative discussions and innovations are happening <a href="https://gemreportunesco.wordpress.com/2017/05/01/growing-demand-for-higher-education-puts-affirmative-action-in-the-spotlight/">outside the United States</a>.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/affirmative-action-should-be-viewed-in-global-context-33618">article</a> originally published on Nov. 13, 2014.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82190/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michele S. Moses receives funding from the Fulbright Scholar Program.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Dudley Jenkins receives funding from the Fulbright Scholar Program.</span></em></p>'Positive discrimination' policies around the world are on the rise. What might other countries teach the U.S. about attaining racial, economic and gender equality in higher education?Michele S. Moses, Professor of Educational Foundations, Policy and Practice, University of ColoradoLaura Dudley Jenkins, Professor of Political Science, University of Cincinnati Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/791642017-07-24T02:29:57Z2017-07-24T02:29:57ZHow a job acquires a gender (and less authority if it's female)<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179349/original/file-20170723-29742-16otg1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why do we think of a firefighter as a man and a nurse as a woman and not the other way around?
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photos</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“I’m not bossy, I’m the boss.” </p>
<p>So proclaims Beyoncé in a video in support of the <a href="http://banbossy.com">#banbossy</a> campaign. The campaign highlights how when little boys take charge, they’re often praised for being a “leader.” But when little girls do, they’re more likely to be scolded for being too “bossy.”</p>
<p>And it matters for grownups, too. Research and media stories <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/sunday-review/women-ceos-glass-ceiling.html">abound</a> with <a href="http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias/">examples</a> of how gender stereotypes disadvantage women leaders. A woman manager is <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/0022-4537.00234/abstract">less likely</a> to be taken seriously by the people who work for her. </p>
<p>When men direct others, they’re often assumed to be assertive and competent. But when women direct others, they’re often disliked and labeled <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103111002514">abrasive</a> or <a href="https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/can-women-be-strong-leaders-without-being-labeled-bossy">bossy</a>.</p>
<p>Our <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122417703087">new study</a> puts a twist on this narrative. Gender bias doesn’t merely disadvantage women, it also can disadvantage men. The reason? We don’t just stereotype men and women. We stereotype jobs. </p>
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<h2>Firefighters and nurses</h2>
<p>Many jobs in the economy are gender-stereotyped. Firefighting is thought of as a man’s job, whereas nursing is thought of as women’s work. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199755776.001.0001/acprof-9780199755776">Previous</a> <a href="http://gender.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/thegenderrevolution.pdf">studies</a> have shown that these stereotypes – which shape our expectations about whether a man or a woman is a better “fit” for a given job – are powerful because they can bias a whole host of employment outcomes. For instance, they influence the chances that a man or a woman will apply for the job, that he or she will be hired, the pay each would receive and even performance evaluations that determine promotions. </p>
<p>But how quickly do these gender stereotypes get attached to jobs in the first place? And, to what extent might such stereotypes affect the level of authority and respect that people are willing to give the man or woman who works in that job?</p>
<h2>How a job gets stereotyped</h2>
<p>To answer these questions, <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122417703087">we studied</a> a job that is ambiguously related to gender: a microfinance loan manager in Central America. </p>
<p>In this region, the microfinance loan manager job is new and gender-balanced in its composition. Unlike firefighters or nurses – jobs that are already strongly gender-stereotyped – loan managers at the microfinance bank we studied are about 50/50 men and women. </p>
<p>The nature of commercial microfinance makes managers’ positions more gender-ambiguous. Microfinance is associated with the financial industry, which is traditionally masculine. But microfinance also has a legacy of social service and poverty alleviation, which are female-stereotyped activities. </p>
<p>Additionally, in the context we studied, the loan manager job had been around for less than 10 years, making it even less likely that clients would have strong preconceptions about whether it was a “man’s job” or a “woman’s job.” </p>
<p>Loan managers at the bank we focused on are frequently reshuffled from one borrower to another. This quasi-random reshuffling allowed us to observe how borrowers’ repayment patterns differed when they were paired with male and female loan managers. For example, a borrower might be paired with a male manager initially and then transferred to a female manager. This switching process allowed us to examine how clients’ repayment rates varied when the only thing that changed was their managers’ gender. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179351/original/file-20170723-28505-os61qb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip">
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<span class="caption">Borrowers are less likely to make their payments on time if the loan manager is a woman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kittisak Jirasittichai/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>We examined borrowers’ missed payment rates as a measure of the authority they afford their managers. Making a payment on time signals that the borrower views the manager as someone whose authority is legitimate and whose directives should be followed. In contrast, missing a payment signals that the borrower feels he or she can approach his or her responsibilities to the manager more laxly. When borrowers miss payments, it suggests the manager lacks the ability to secure compliance and therefore lacks authority.</p>
<p>We found that it took only one interaction before clients assigned a gender to the job and began to treat anyone in that role (man or woman) based on that stereotype, which meant less authority if the loan manager position was seen as a “woman’s job.” So if a client’s first manager was a woman, they would tend to miss more payments on their loan – even if later transferred to a male manager – compared with one who was initially paired with a man. These effects persisted even when we accounted for other factors that might affect repayment, like income and loan size. </p>
<p>Male managers whose clients perceived the job as a “woman’s job” experienced an especially large disadvantage compared to male managers whose clients perceived the job as a “man’s job.” </p>
<p>When men stepped in to work with a client who had initially worked with another male loan manager, the client was highly compliant with his directives. But when men stepped in to work with a client who had initially worked with a female loan manager, the client afforded them much less authority. They were much less compliant than they would have been if they had initially worked with a male loan manager. </p>
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<span class="caption">Former Yahoo president and CEO Marissa Mayer has accused the media of gender bias in how it reports on her work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Eric Risberg</span></span>
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<h2>Gendered jobs harm us all</h2>
<p>When gender stereotypes get attached to a job, it biases the authority that people attribute to the man or woman who happens to work in that position. In this way, men experience negative bias when working in positions that others associate with women.</p>
<p>Our findings show that, when men work in a managerial job that people associate with a man and male stereotypes, they are able to wield a substantial amount of authority over clients. But when the very same managerial job happens to be associated with a woman, men who work in that position are viewed as significantly less legitimate sources of authority.</p>
<p>In other words, our study suggests that stereotyping a job as “women’s work” and societal biases that grant women less authority than men harm us all.</p>
<p>Ideally, we want to live in a world where we perform the work that is best suited to our abilities and where an individual in a position of authority receives the same respect, regardless of gender. If we all can support both men and women who work in gender-atypical roles, perhaps we can become less likely to devalue some workers on the basis of arbitrary and old-fashioned gender stereotypes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79164/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Thebaud receives funding from the Kauffman Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Doering receives funding from the Fulbright Institute, the Kauffman Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Lee-Chin Institute for Corporate Citizenship, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>Why do we consider some occupations 'male' and other 'female'? New research sheds some light on how giving jobs genders hurts everyone, men included.Sarah Thebaud, Associate Professor, Sociology, University of California, Santa BarbaraLaura Doering, Assistant Professor of Strategy and Organization, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/776332017-05-24T06:30:25Z2017-05-24T06:30:25ZWhat Iranian women want: rights, jobs and a seat at the table<p>Issues affecting women were conspicuously absent from Iran’s 2017 presidential election. That’s unless one finds useful the leading conservative candidate Hojjat al-Islam Ebrahim Raisi’s <a href="http://www.bbc.com/persian/blog-viewpoints-39792914?SThisFB">comment</a> that his government would enhance women’s dignity within the family, because women should be “good mothers and wives”.</p>
<p>The absence was a departure from the <a href="http://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/womens-movement">June 2009 presidential campaign</a>, when two reformist candidates backed women’s rights.</p>
<p>Now that President Hassan Rouhani has been reelected by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/middleeast/iran-election-hassan-rouhani.html?_r=0">a wide margin</a> for another four-year term, it is crucial to ponder what his victory means for Iranian women. Rouhani has widespread support among Iran’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/20/iran-hassan-rouhani-set-for-landslide-in-huge-victory-for-reformists">urban population, the middle class, young people and women</a>.</p>
<p>Iranian activists did try to raise the issue during the electoral season. On May 6, several weeks before the election, some 180 women, including journalists, intellectuals and veteran activists, such as <a href="https://tavaana.org/en/content/noushin-ahmadi-khorasani-two-decades-struggle-womens-rights">Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2016/mar/04/iranian-election-seven-key-human-rights-challenges-facing-president-rouhani">Minoo Mortazi</a>, <a href="http://www.merip.org/author/fatemeh-sadeghi">Fatemeh Sadeghi</a>, <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/iran_segregation_divide/24264572.html">Fatemeh Govarayee</a>, issued a <a href="http://news.gooya.com/2017/05/post-3446.php">statement</a> outlining their <a href="https://www.iranhumanrights.org/2017/05/iranian-womens-rights-activists-use-elections-as-opportunities-to-put-forth-demands/">demands for the next president of Iran</a>. </p>
<p>Among them were <a href="http://norooznews.org/news/2017/05/6/5179">greater inclusion of women</a> in the country’s economic activity, repeal of discriminatory laws, increased female sports and a quota reserving at least 30% of ministerial positions for women. </p>
<p>The statement was hardly noticed, in part because the months prior to the election saw a crackdown on activism, with <a href="https://www.iranhumanrights.org/2017/03/mps-demand-answers-from-rouhani-on-increasing-arrests-ahead-of-election/">increasing</a> detentions, arrests, trials and long prison terms. </p>
<h2>No space for women</h2>
<p>All six candidates made promises about <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-do-iranians-want-better-salaries-more-jobs-and-safe-working-conditions-76872">creating jobs and reducing poverty</a> during their campaigns, but the social, economic and political status of women was barely discussed.</p>
<p>According to a May 11 <a href="http://www.icanpeacework.org/2017/05/11/women-iranian-elections/">analysis by the International Civil Society Action Network</a> of the first televised electoral debate, there was just one question about women, with a two-minute response time allotted. And that question centred on the role of women in the family. </p>
<p>In another debate, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/persian/blog-viewpoints-39792914?SThisFB">Sardar Ghalibaf</a>, Tehran’s mayor and former candidate, who is Raisi’s ally, discussed single mothers and the challenges of raising children with disabilities. But he focused on supporting the children without highlighting that their mothers require financial help to do so.</p>
<p>Reacting in an interview with the daily newspaper <a href="http://shahrvand-newspaper.ir/news:nomobile/main/98274/%D8%BA%D9%81%D9%84%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D8%B2-%D8%B2%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%86">Shahrvand</a>, Parvaneh Salahshouri, a female parliamentarian from Tehran, asked, “How is it that social issues are addressed but the demands of half of society are not taken into consideration?”</p>
<p>Salahshouri criticised the state broadcasting agency, but her remarks also pointed at the candidates, suggesting that by limiting their discussion of gender issues to the family, the men displayed a contempt for the real problems faced by women. </p>
<h2>Discrimination against women</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/10/28/womens-rights-iran">Discrimination against women remains prevalent in Iran</a>. Iranian women do not have custody of their children, compulsory veiling is still enforced and domestic violence is insufficiently condemned by law. With inheritances, a man is entitled to twice as much a woman. </p>
<p>Iranian women are highly educated. In 2013, they <a href="http://www.educationnews.org/international-uk/highly-educated-iranian-women-kept-out-of-job-market/">represented over 60% of the country’s university applicants</a>. But they lack access to jobs. </p>
<p>Though official unemployment figures <a href="http://www.tradingeconomics.com/iran/unemployment-rate">hover around 12% </a>, the number could as <a href="http://www.rahesabz.net/story/81704/">high as 20% for women</a>. </p>
<p>Female workers are also <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/05/iran-women-factory-workers-face-discrimination.html">paid less than male peers, especially in factories</a>, and many women must work two jobs to make ends meet. </p>
<p>A rising number of women from <a href="https://books.google.fr/books?id=Y3SRPEEB-7IC&amp;pg=PA85&amp;lpg=PA85&amp;dq=iranian+women+turn+to+prostitution&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=hcVC9uf0SO&amp;sig=SVSNmJMaAYHNagPMDO0fk8S1ZtQ&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;redir_esc=y#v=onepage&amp;q=iranian%20women%20turn%20to%20prostitution&amp;f=false">fragile socioeconomic backgrounds</a> have turned to sex work to earn higher wages, both <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-18966982">online</a> and on the streets.</p>
<p>Activities that seem mundane in many other parts of the world, such as partaking in sports, are still a challenge in Iran. Women are not allowed into stadiums with men, even though Iranian female athletes have achieved significant <a href="https://www.iranhumanrights.org/2016/09/olympics-leila-varizi-2/">success in international sports competitions</a>.</p>
<h2>Small, steady successes</h2>
<p>There are some bright spots. Iranian businesswomen have thrived in recent years, <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-39129-8_5?no-access=true">excelling in diverse sectors</a>, from knowledge-based corporate services and recycling to animal husbandry. </p>
<p>On the political front, too, women are emerging victorious. In the May 2016 parliamentary election, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36182796">17 women were elected to join the 290-member body)</a>, an historic record for the Islamic Republic.</p>
<p>This year’s city council elections, which took place on the same day as the presidential election, saw heavy participation by women as voters and on the ballot, with an increase in female candidates of nearly <a href="https://english.shabtabnews.com/2017/04/28/female-former-council-member-advocates-for-women-candidates-in-irans-local-elections">6% over the previous year</a>. </p>
<p>Women competed even in small cities, and images of female candidates circulated widely on Iranian social media. City councils are important in Iran’s city planning and urban life, and many activists <a href="https://www.iranhumanrights.org/2017/04/female-former-council-member-advocates-for-women-candidates-in-irans-local-elections/">encouraged women</a> to participate. </p>
<p>The high female turnout, and the volume of qualified women in city councils, could give women <a href="https://globalvoices.org/2017/05/11/irans-upcoming-local-elections-are-an-opportunity-for-women/">more latitude to actually change their everyday lives</a>. But they will need support from higher authorities to do so.</p>
<h2>Rouhani’s failed efforts</h2>
<p>Is Rouhani their guy? The president is considered a religious moderate, and <a href="https://www.iranhumanrights.org/2013/08/president-hassan-rouhani/#Women">in 2013 he claimed</a> that he would open up social and political spheres to women. In 2014, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27099151">he went so far as to criticise</a> gender discrimination and encourage equality. </p>
<p>Such statements clash with those of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who believes that women should be primarily <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/04/khamenei-rouhani-clash-women-issue.html">dedicated to household activities</a> and that Iran must not adopt Western views on gender.</p>
<p>In his first term, Rouhani <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/en/originals/2016/12/iran-cabinet-reshuffle-women-vp-ministers-shojaei-ahmadipour.htm">appointed women to ministerial and cabinet positions</a>. The vice president for women and family affairs, Shahindokht Molaverdi, has used this space to contribute to the national gender debate by <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/world/female-iran-vp-scolds-hardliners-over-volleyball-ban-for-women/story-C05ZB6INkXjy1qcTpHR3dM.html">condemning hardliners</a> who threatened female spectators at a men’s volleyball match.</p>
<p>Speaking at <a href="http://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2016/feb/09/rouhani-women%E2%80%99s-rights">a national conference and women and development</a> on February 7, President Rouhani said, “We should believe in women’s presence and capabilities and know that our country’s women can have roles in science, knowledge, economy, politics, and arts just like men.”</p>
<p>But many Iranian women feel <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-election-women-youth-insight-idUSKCN0VD2FS">Rouhani has failed them</a>. Segregation in public spaces, gender discrimination, and morality police all <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-16/iran-s-oppression-of-rights-women-worse-under-rouhani-un-says">persist</a>, and the president <a href="http://www.iranpressnews.com/english/source/205439.html">remained silent</a> when female activists were arrested during the election campaign.</p>
<p>Admittedly, Rouhani has limited room to manoeuvre. Powerful hardliners <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/da7e7704-d1c1-11e6-b06b-680c49b4b4c0">control</a> key Iranian political structures, among them the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/03/iran_power/html/guardian_council.stm">Guardian Council</a>, which has the final say on interpretation of Islamic values and laws, including veto power. A conservative majority in the parliament also prevents strong reforms from passing.</p>
<p>The question now is whether Rouhani will use his second term to find new opportunities and live up to Iranian women’s hopes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77633/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Azadeh Davachi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Will President Rouhani, who has spoken up for gender equality, give women a chance in his second term?Azadeh Davachi, Researcher, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/735352017-03-09T12:22:53Z2017-03-09T12:22:53ZWhy women and men too easily accept the gender pay gap<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159596/original/image-20170306-20759-1oyjsv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Money matters.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/gender-pay-gap-488107402?src=87F5WHCYyIwP8lZX6XUQHw-1-2">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Large employers in the UK <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35553573">will have to publish</a> from April annual data on their gender pay and bonuses gaps. While under the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/equality-act-guidance">Equal Pay Act</a> it is illegal to pay men and women differently for doing the same job, <a href="http://visual.ons.gov.uk/the-gender-pay-gap-what-is-it-and-what-affects-it/">figures from</a> the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/">Office for National Statistics</a> puts the gender pay gap for full-time employees in 2016 at 9.4% in the UK. The reasons for this substantial difference in earnings are often attributed to occupational segregation by gender, driven by differences in education, accumulated experience and discrimination. </p>
<p>But <a href="http://www.fiwi.uni-jena.de/wfwmedia/Lehre/GenderEconomics/Bertrand+2011+New+Perspectives+on+Gender+In+Handbook+of+Labor+Economics+4+B-p-454.pdf">recent research</a> has instead focused on underlying gender differences in preferences and psychological attributes which may affect choice of work, and therefore help to explain the gender pay gap. </p>
<p>For instance, women may seek different career paths and value aspects of employment such as flexibility and a pleasant working environment instead of focusing directly on pay. On the whole, women tend also to be more <a href="http://www.mbs.ac.uk/news/research/study-finds-women-more-risk-averse-in-the-boardroom/">risk averse than men</a> and have lower preferences for <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jel.47.2.448">competitive situations</a> which can both lead to career choices with lower earnings than men. </p>
<p>So psychology seems to provide a fruitful area for explaining the gender pay gap. The focus of my <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268117300379">own research</a> into this subject is a particularly pertinent psychological trait, that of optimism. By optimism, I specifically mean systematically biased beliefs in the probability of doing well. </p>
<p>Psychologists <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.535.9244&amp;rep=rep1&amp;type=pdf">have documented</a> our tendency to view ourselves in implausibly positive ways and our absurd belief that our future will be better than the evidence of the present can possibly justify. However, when it comes to assessing our competence, our ability and our future prosperity, men really do overestimate themselves while <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2118063?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">women are typically more pessimistic</a>. I found that this difference between men and women can really matter in matters of employment. </p>
<p>Optimism affects the satisfaction we get from our pay. While we know that women face a substantial wage penalty compared to men, they <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537197000109">also tend</a> to be more generally satisfied with their work and income. This is a counter-intuitive situation. We would expect those who get paid the most (men) to be the most satisfied. Here is where optimism, our biased perception of the future comes into play. The satisfaction we gain from our wages is to some extent based upon our expectations. Receiving £10 when you are expecting £5 feels pleasing. But receiving £10 when you are expecting £20 feels disappointing. </p>
<p>If women are predisposed to underestimating themselves and their labour market prospects, as <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268117300379">my study</a> finds, they will continue, on the whole, to be satisfied with such pay inequality. This is a worrying state of affairs. We tend to search for new jobs when we feel that some aspect of our current occupation, such as pay, can be improved upon. But if we are satisfied, we stay in that job, we don’t negotiate and we don’t ask for that promotion. </p>
<h2>Battle of the sexes</h2>
<p>For men it’s the opposite story. They constantly overestimate themselves, widening their vulnerability to inevitable disappointment. Disappointed workers negotiate, they always ask for promotions and are happy to switch employers to improve upon aspects of their jobs which they feel can be bettered. </p>
<p>So optimism pays off in the labour market – it drives the pursuit of employment with better wages. Optimism may also be beneficial in other ways. Psychologists have <a href="http://humancond.org/_media/papers/taylor_brown_88_illusion_and_well_being.pdf">often linked</a> optimism with motivation and our ability to cope with stress. Believing in ourselves and in our abilities may also help us to convince others, especially our boss, that we are brilliant. </p>
<p>After all, to convince others of your competence, you really need to believe it yourself. If psychology is the problem – even in labour markets with no discrimination – women will continue to earn less, simply because they are too easily satisfied with lower pay. </p>
<p>It is difficult to know how laws and policy makers can solve this pessimistic female outlook, since personality traits tend to be established and fixed early on in pre-adult life. But perhaps one step in the right direction would be for employers to adjust their recruitment and promotion policies, by pulling up women with potential instead of waiting for them to come knocking.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73535/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Dawson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A difference in psychology could explain the difference in rewards.Chris Dawson, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Business Economics, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/734182017-02-23T02:01:48Z2017-02-23T02:01:48ZUber's dismissive treatment of employee's sexism claims is all too typical<p>Uber has suffered a spate of bad publicity in recent days after allegations of harassment and discrimination from a former software engineer. </p>
<p>In a blog post, Susan Fowler <a href="https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber">described</a> being propositioned by her supervisor within weeks of starting her job.
She complained to the human resources (HR) team. According to Fowler, the supervisor received a “warning and a stern talking-to” but no other discipline at the time because he was a strong performer and it was his “first offense.” Uber then offered her a choice: Transfer to another team or stay and risk a retaliatory performance review from the harasser. </p>
<p>Fowler also described a larger pattern of harassment, discrimination and retaliation. Others reported being harassed by the same manager, apparently contradicting what HR told her. Fowler’s performance review was downgraded, making her ineligible for a subsidized graduate program. When Fowler asked a director about “dwindling” representation of women in the division, he attributed it to their failure to step up and be better engineers. When Uber ordered leather jackets for engineers, they were ordered only for men. Apparently, there weren’t enough women to qualify for a bulk discount.</p>
<p>Fowler complained repeatedly. HR responded with escalating indifference, ultimately suggesting that Fowler herself was the problem. </p>
<p>After Fowler’s post went viral, Uber sought to distance itself from the incident and <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/uber-eric-holder-to-investigate-sexual-harassment-235223">hired</a> former Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate. CEO Travis Kalanick <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/19/uber-ceo-travis-kalanick-says-orders-urgent-investigation-after-allegation-of-harassment-gender-bias-at-company.html">issued a response</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“What she describes is abhorrent and against everything Uber stands for and believes in.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Fowler’s story – which Uber neither confirmed nor denied – is not unique in the tech sector, where women remain underrepresented. Women make up only <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/27/women-in-tech_n_6955940.html">12 percent of engineers</a>. These women face substantial <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8655598674229196978&amp;q=built+in+headwinds&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=6,38">headwinds</a>. In a <a href="https://www.elephantinthevalley.com/">survey</a> of women in the tech sector, 84 percent reported being told they were “too aggressive” and 59 percent said they were offered fewer opportunities than male counterparts. The majority also reported receiving unwanted sexual advances. And of those that reported the harassment, 60 percent were unhappy with the company’s response. </p>
<p>The Uber story provides a window into how companies have developed HR infrastructure to address anti-discrimination laws. These structures occupy a marginalized status within organizations. </p>
<p>As I learned while working as an employment lawyer at a large law firm, legal mandates rarely disrupt business objectives. Instead, they are largely viewed as an inconvenience delegated to HR. That explains, for example, why the CEO learned about Fowler’s allegations <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/business/uber-sexual-harassment-investigation.html?_r=0">only after they went viral</a>.</p>
<h2>Symbolic structures</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/titlevii.cfm">Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act</a> safeguards an employee’s right to equal opportunity in the workplace. </p>
<p>It initially protected an employee against discrimination in hiring, pay, promotion and termination. Courts later expanded definitions of discrimination to <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=14616838878214701501&amp;q=meritor&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=6,38">include harassment</a>. Title VII also protects employees from <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6815686592442149051&amp;q=burlington+norther&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=6,38">retaliation</a> for complaining about discrimination or harassment. </p>
<p>As sociologist Lauren Edelman documents in a recent <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo24550454.html">book</a>, employers responded to civil rights laws by setting up complaint processes for employees. She argues that these processes are less focused on meaningfully assuring equal opportunity and more about creating the appearance of compliance. </p>
<h2>The ‘first bite is free’</h2>
<p>According to Edelman, <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo24550454.html">courts have become complicit</a> in this development, crediting employers for superficial procedures without assessing whether they actually work.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court’s decision in <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15103611360542350644&amp;q=faragher+v.+city+of+boca+raton&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=6,38">Faragher v. City of Boca Raton</a> is a case in point. The case gives employers a defense in harassment cases if they took reasonable measures to prevent and correct harassment and the victim unreasonably failed to make use of internal complaint mechanisms. </p>
<p>However, courts don’t require employers to do very much to satisfy the defense. Merely adopting and distributing a policy <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=267088">gets an employer credit,</a> as does adopting an investigation process. Courts do not require employers to take strong disciplinary action against the harasser. Rather, they need only take action <a href="http://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/upitt61&amp;section=22">reasonably calculated</a> to stop the harassment – even if it does not. </p>
<p>In theory, a plaintiff would still have a viable claim if they used the employer’s complaint procedure. But <a href="http://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/upitt61&amp;section=22">one empirical study</a> found that even short delays in reporting the harassment can be considered “unreasonable” on the victim’s part. So if a victim waits a few months to report the harassment, and the employer goes through the motions of investigating and responding, the victim may be out of luck.</p>
<p>This doesn’t give employers much of an incentive to crack down on harassment. As one scholar observed, it essentially allows employers to escape liability for a harasser’s first offense. In other words, the “<a href="http://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/upitt61&amp;section=22">first bite is free</a>.” </p>
<p>This helps to explain Uber’s underwhelming response to Fowler’s initial complaint. Uber wasn’t really on the hook for the “first report” and did not have a strong incentive to punish the harasser. For Fowler’s harasser, that meant a “warning and a stern talking-to.”</p>
<h2>It’s just a ‘business decision’</h2>
<p>Lauren Edelman’s <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo24550454.html">research</a> also documented a tendency among HR and lawyers to characterize civil rights obligations as “legal risks.” </p>
<p>This is consistent with how I talked to employers when I worked as an employment lawyer. I offered advice on “legal risks” while they were tasked with making “business decisions” on how to proceed.</p>
<p>However, this frame ultimately treats legal rules as one of many factors to take into account (or ignore) when employers make important decisions. </p>
<p>Consider Fowler’s situation. Uber evidently considered Fowler’s harasser to be an economically valuable employee that might be difficult to replace. Transferring the harasser to another team or terminating his employment likely would have been costly. By contrast, offering Fowler a transfer seemed a cheaper alternative, notwithstanding its effect on Fowler and the increased litigation risk. </p>
<p>When framed as a business decision, companies have a tendency to displace the victim of the harassment to preserve the profits associated with a high-flying harasser.</p>
<h2>Swatting mosquitoes while ignoring the termites</h2>
<p>Fowler’s allegations of sexual harassment <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/uber-s-handling-susan-fowler-scandal-will-determine-it-fate-n723596">have received</a> <a href="http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/02/susan-fowler-alleges-sexual-discrimination-against-uber.html">a lot</a> of <a href="http://www.recode.net/2017/2/21/14673658/uber-travis-kalanick-susan-fowler-diversity-sexual-harassment">press attention</a>, but in many ways her allegations of systemic discrimination and retaliation were more troubling. </p>
<p>The director’s comment that women weren’t stepping up. The altered performance evaluation that cost Fowler a spot at grad school. The leather jackets. </p>
<p>HR was even less responsive to these complaints than to the harassment allegations and blamed the problem on Fowler herself. Why? They may not have believed her. But HR may have been limited in its capacity to fix the underlying problem. Yes, it could have paid for the leather jackets, addressed the doctored performance evaluations or scolded the director for his sexist comment.</p>
<p>But HR, on its own, is poorly situated to fix a business culture that is indifferent to (or in denial about) offering meaningful opportunities for advancement to women or other minorities in the workplace. As political scientist Frank Dobbin <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8909.html">has argued</a>, human resources professionals have long struggled to establish their legitimacy within organizations. They are rarely the locus of power within corporations, which instead resides in revenue-generating departments like engineering and sales, and in the executives that preside over the business. </p>
<p>HR advises. Business decides.</p>
<h2>Rooting out discrimination</h2>
<p>Business leaders make a Faustian bargain when they outsource civil rights compliance to HR and lawyers. They gain credible symbols of compliance. But they also lose touch with a business identity that includes doing right by their employees. As Mary Gentile argues in her book, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Y7yrKBVflgkC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=giving+voice+to+values&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjb_IiHnqTSAhVJ8mMKHU36A7wQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&amp;q=giving%20voice%20to%20values&amp;f=false">Giving Voice to Values</a>,” we lose touch with our shared values when we define work roles too narrowly.</p>
<p>In retrospect, Uber’s decision to side with the harasser over Fowler was a bad business move. All the bad press has reinforced existing narratives of Uber as a <a href="https://www.recode.net/2016/4/25/11586386/uber-driver-tips-settlement">bad</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/business/delete-uber.html">actor</a>. But the decision was also – to use a word that has fallen out of favor in the business vernacular – wrong. </p>
<p>Until business leaders view themselves as guardians of civil rights, those rights will continue to be framed as a tax on profits rather than important values to uphold.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73418/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth C. Tippett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The escalating indifference with which Uber allegedly reacted to a software engineer's harassment claims is the norm in the corporate world, where enforcing civil rights laws is seen as a tax on profits.Elizabeth C. Tippett, Assistant Professor, School of Law, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/719212017-01-30T13:45:20Z2017-01-30T13:45:20ZHow discriminatory dress codes at work are digging their heels in<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154701/original/image-20170130-7659-1a4m9l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Discriminatory dress codes are still widespread in British workplaces according to <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmpetitions/291/291.pdf">a recent report</a> by MPs. Women, they found, are held to a far more exacting standard than men and a change in the law that governs dress codes has been called for as a result. Unfortunately, the law alone will not be enough to change things.</p>
<p>The debate <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/25/piers-morgan-others-weigh-dress-code-argument-should-women-have/">that ensued</a> over whether or not high heels should legitimately form part of a dress code for women is a case in point. Women’s shoes remain an important part of popular culture, whether in the form of the red stiletto used by companies like Virgin Atlantic in their award-winning <a href="http://www.thecreativeindustries.co.uk/industries/advertising/advertising-case-studies/advertising-case-virgin-atlantic">Still Red Hot campaign</a> or in fairy tales such as the delicate glass slipper that was Cinderella’s route out of sweeping cold fireplaces. </p>
<p>This is not only a Western issue. For centuries, Chinese women endured a more extreme version of foot crippling fashion. Described as “lotus feet”, it was the cultural custom for women to have their feet tightly bound into a disabling shape – because it was deemed beautiful. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154702/original/image-20170130-7685-y635pw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A lotus shoe for bound feet. The ideal length for a bound foot was about 10cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding#/media/File:Chaussure_chinoise_Saverne_02_05_2012_1.jpg">Vassil/wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As anthropologist Jo Farrell documented in an <a href="http://www.livinghistory.photography">extraordinary photographic project</a> on some of the last Chinese women living with bound feet, culture dictated that bound feet were a prerequisite for marriage. One woman, Su Xi, told Farrell that if she tried to unbind her feet as a young woman, her grandmother would cut a slice of skin off her toes to punish her. And this was in the 1940s, decades after foot binding became illegal in China.</p>
<h2>Pain and long-term damage</h2>
<p>Fast-forward to December 2015 and Nicola Thorp, a woman working as a temporary receptionist at financial services company PwC in London, is sent home without pay <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/11/receptionist-sent-home-pwc-not-wearing-high-heels-pwc-nicola-thorp">for refusing to wear high heels</a>. Thorp was told that the smart, flat shoes she was wearing did not comply with her employer’s specific requirement for women to wear shoes with a two to four inch high heel. </p>
<p>As a result of her experience, Thorp <a href="https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/129823">started a petition</a> calling for it to be made “illegal for a company to require women to wear high heels at work”. It was signed by more than 150,000 people, prompting the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/petitions-committee/inquiries/parliament-2015/high-heels-workplace-dress-codes-inquiry-16-17/">recent parliamentary inquiry</a>. </p>
<p>The inquiry involved hundreds of women and expert witnesses from trade unions, political groups and professional bodies, including podiatrists, who provided evidence of the <a href="http://www.thespinehealthinstitute.com/news-room/health-blog/how-high-heels-affect-your-body">pain and long-term damage</a> caused by wearing high-heeled shoes for long periods of time. But it became clear during the inquiry that the problem was by no means confined to shoes. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154705/original/image-20170130-7656-40ozwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Equal?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Women also reported being told to dye their hair a particular colour, to wear revealing clothing, and to regularly reapply a minimum amount of makeup. No men came forward to say that the same rules, or even informal pressures, applied to them – they too have office dress codes but they are generally less punishing.</p>
<p>Nor, as also became evident in the report, is legislation the only answer. </p>
<p>As the report acknowledges, legislation is already in place (in the form of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/equality-act-2010-guidance">Equality Act 2010</a> which prohibits discrimination on the basis of characteristics like gender (as well as disability and race). So either the existing law is unclear, or it is not widely understood – or it is simply being ignored. Certainly, the continuation of such discrimination has many potential advantages for employers. </p>
<p>The Fawcett Society, a women’s rights charity, emphasised this in their contribution to the inquiry. It <a href="http://www.itv.com/news/2017-01-25/women-face-sexist-dress-codes-at-work-report-finds/">highlighted</a> the extent to which sexualised dress codes, which tell a woman that how she looks is more important that what she says or does, are a good way to justify paying her less and demeaning her career achievements.</p>
<h2>Reinforcing stereotypes</h2>
<p>By perpetuating a very narrow ideal of what it means to look like a woman, such codes reinforce persistent stereotypes. These might serve to further marginalise LGBT people, older and disabled workers, as well as people from ethnic minority groups in the labour market.</p>
<p>Yet while this is about so much more than shoes, we should not trivialise the significance of shoes in this discussion and the issues they raise.</p>
<p>As management professor Emma Bell <a href="https://theconversation.com/wearing-heels-to-work-is-a-game-women-have-been-losing-for-decades-59337">has written</a> high heels are powerful, fetishised symbols in our society, signifying the seductive power attributed to women, particularly in the media. They are “a marker of high status, despite their impracticality and physical strain that they put on a woman’s body”. It is precisely this double-bind that makes high heels arguably today’s lotus shoes. </p>
<p>By wearing heels, women evoke a seductive power, respect and admiration through a form that ironically, and painfully, undermines their capacity to meaningfully experience any of these. </p>
<p>If the goal of getting and keeping a husband was what foot binding was about, today’s women are told that wearing heels (or the right hair colour, clothing or makeup) is their route to securing a job. Both are a form of economic security. The target may have changed but the means have not, as women’s bodies continue to be manipulated and reduced to aesthetic objects in the labour market. </p>
<p>So while the enforcement of relevant legislation and proposed fines for noncompliant employers is an important step forwards, on its own it will never be enough to tackle the wider aesthetic ideals and processes of objectification that underpin discriminatory dress codes in the workplace.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71921/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Forcing women to wear high heels at work is discriminatory, but it will take more than the law to change dress codes.Melissa Tyler, Professor in Work and Organisation Studies, University of EssexPhilip Hancock, Professor of Work and Organisation, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/684622017-01-06T01:15:31Z2017-01-06T01:15:31ZHow ride-hailing apps like Uber continue cab industry's history of racial discrimination<p>From hailing taxis that won’t stop for them to being forced to ride at the back of buses, African-Americans have long endured discrimination within the transportation industry. </p>
<p>Many have hoped the emergence of a technology-driven “new economy,” providing greater information and transparency and buoyed by an avowed idealism, would help us break from our history of systemic discrimination against minorities. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, our research shows that the new economy has brought along some old baggage, suggesting that it takes more than just new technologies to transform attitudes and behavior.</p>
<p>Our new paper, “<a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w22776">Racial and Gender Discrimination in Transportation Network Companies</a>,” found patterns of discrimination in how some drivers using ride-hailing platforms, such as Uber and Lyft, treat African-American passengers and women. Our results are based on extensive field studies in Seattle and Boston, both considered liberal-minded cities, and provide stark evidence of discrimination.</p>
<h2>Taxis and discrimination</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-34674173">Discrimination</a> by <a href="http://nypost.com/2015/05/28/puerto-rico-mayor-booted-from-nyc-cab/">taxi drivers</a> has long been a <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/why-i-still-get-shunned-by-taxi-drivers/411583/">social problem</a>. As a result, most cities explicitly require drivers to pick up any passenger while on duty, something <a href="http://nypost.com/2015/06/09/city-puts-biased-taxi-drivers-on-notice/">they’re reminded of</a>, but such provisions are difficult to enforce. Our work confirmed that traditional taxis in downtown Seattle were more likely to pass black passengers without stopping than to drive by white passengers.</p>
<p>Advances in technology are drastically changing the cab-hailing experience, however, allowing those in need of a lift to order a car with a few taps on a smartphone. The question we wanted to answer with our research is whether this fast-growing market is treating customers of all races and genders equally. </p>
<p>Plainly put, is the traditional taxi driver’s decision, made in public view, not to stop for an African-American passenger being eliminated? Or is it just being replaced by a driver’s swipe on a screen, made in private but with the same effect?</p>
<p>The relationship between these services and discrimination is a complex one. A <a href="http://botecanalysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/LATS-Final-Report.pdf">study funded by Uber</a> found that its UberX service provided lower fares and shorter wait times than traditional taxis in areas of Los Angeles with below-average incomes. <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692316301430">Similar research found</a> that expected wait times for the service were shorter in Seattle-area neighborhoods with lower incomes, even after adjusting for several variables. On the other hand, ride-hailing apps are unavailable to customers without a credit card, <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/05/credit-invisible-26-million-have-no-credit-score.html">who are more likely to be</a> lower-income and a member of a minority group.</p>
<p>But this looks at the problem only from a systemic point of view, while the actual decision to pick up a passenger is made by individual drivers. Although drivers are required to maintain high levels of overall performance, there is no mechanism that might detect whether they’re discriminating. </p>
<p>For our study, we used a simple but powerful method to measure this: random field tests. We dispatched research assistants – white and black, male and female – into the field, at varying times of the day and in varying parts of Seattle and Boston, and asked them to order, wait and ride in vehicles hailed by a platform like Uber, which we term “transportation network companies,” or TNCs. </p>
<p>Such random field tests are conceptually simple, but they’re considered the “gold standard” in the research field – and we conducted nearly 1,500 rides in the two cities.</p>
<p>At all times, the research assistants carefully monitored and recorded predetermined performance metrics for every ride they took with screenshots of their smartphones: before requesting a trip (with expected wait time), just after the trip is accepted (with a new wait time), again if a driver canceled, when the driver arrives and when the vehicle stops at the destination. Using the data gathered, we evaluated wait times, travel times, cancellation rates, costs and ratings awarded. </p>
<p>OK, what did we find?</p>
<h2>The good news</h2>
<p>First of all, there is some good news. </p>
<p>For one, black passengers in our study received the same level of “star ratings” from drivers that picked them up as white ones, meaning that their future trip requests will not be handicapped by poor reviews. </p>
<p>Second, as we noted earlier, <a href="http://faculty.washington.edu/dwhm/2016/10/24/does-uber-equitably-serve-different-types-of-neighborhoods/">other recent research has shown</a> that (at least in Seattle) predicted waiting times for an Uber are actually shorter in lower-income neighborhoods than in wealthier areas, suggesting that drivers are not avoiding low-income areas altogether. </p>
<h2>The bad news</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, there is some bad news, too. In short, we found significant discrimination in both cities. </p>
<p>In Seattle, the data showed African-American passengers had to wait consistently longer to get picked up by an Uber – as much as 35 percent more than white passengers. The data also showed that black passengers waiting slightly longer than white passengers to have Lyft requests accepted, although this did not translate into a significantly longer wait to be picked up.</p>
<p>In Boston, a separate experiment that captured a wider variety of performance metrics found more frequent cancellations when a passenger used stereotypically African-American-sounding names such as Jamal or Aisha. Across all trips, the cancellation rate for black-sounding names was more than double that for stereotypically white-sounding names such as Jerry or Allison. </p>
<p>The effect was even stronger in low-density (more suburban) areas, where male passengers were more than three times as likely to have their trips canceled when they used an African-American-sounding name as when they used a white-sounding name. We also found evidence that in at least some cases, drivers took female passengers for longer – and potentially more expensive – rides. </p>
<p>We emphasize that we are not saying TNCs are better or worse than traditional taxis. In fact, our data do not allow us to make that comparison. Anecdotally, many travelers report that they can now get a ride whereas in the past they could not. But what our data do show is that differences in quality of service seem to persist. </p>
<h2>Is there a solution?</h2>
<p>We believe that many of the problems we have identified can be mitigated simply by changing some of the practices and policies at ride-sharing companies. Uber <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12354407">has already begun adopting</a> one change – flat fares based on origin and destination – that could reduce the incentive for drivers to take passengers on longer routes. </p>
<p>Transportation network companies may also want to increase the direct penalties for drivers who cancel trips, including cases where they don’t officially cancel but simply never pick up the passenger – another behavior we observed. Implementing periodic or ongoing audits to detect potentially discriminatory behavior may help as well.</p>
<p>And more data are needed. We are sure that much more could be learned from data that are locked away inside the companies. But the companies – understandably – are reluctant to share it except when compelled to do so by regulators. </p>
<h2>End of discrimination?</h2>
<p>Could these and other changes eliminate racial and gender discrimination within the emerging ride-hailing industry? </p>
<p>Unfortunately, complete elimination is unlikely. And care should be taken to ensure that well-intentioned measures don’t simply shift the locus of discrimination. For example, making it harder for drivers to cancel might have the unintended consequence of causing drivers to give certain types of riders lower star ratings or avoid certain neighborhoods altogether, which could actually worsen the impact of discrimination.</p>
<p>We are confident that Uber, Lyft and other TNCs have the technological know-how to continue revolutionizing urban transportation. They also now have the evidence that they can and should make changes to their policies and practices to ensure that everyone shares in the benefits of our new economy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68462/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Don MacKenzie received funding for the work discussed here from the University of Washington&#39;s Royalty Research Fund. He has received other funding from the National Science Foundation, Toyota Motor North America, Seattle Department of Transportation, Washington State Department of Transportation, and the US Department of Transportation via the Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium. He has received in-kind contributions from Lyft and BMW (passenger credits for research participants) in support of an unrelated project.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher R. Knittel, Stephen Zoepf, and Yanbo Ge do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Cab drivers have long discriminated against African-Americans and other minority groups. New research suggests ride-hailing apps haven't solved the problem.Yanbo Ge, Ph.D. in Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of WashingtonChristopher R. Knittel, Professor of Applied Economics and Director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, MIT Sloan School of ManagementDon MacKenzie, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of WashingtonStephen Zoepf, Executive Director of the Center for Automotive Research, Stanford UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/681122016-11-25T07:30:58Z2016-11-25T07:30:58ZMore boys are diagnosed with cancer than girls worldwide – why?<p>Like most things, cancer diagnosis is not equal for men and women. </p>
<p>In adults, sexual hormones, dietary habits, exposure to carcinogens, smoking and alcohol consumption combine to give rise to a situation where more men than women are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25220842">diagnosed with cancer globally</a>. </p>
<p>Worldwide, 7.4 million cancers are diagnosed in men and 6.6 million are diagnosed in women. Lung, prostate and colorectal cancer are the most common types among men, whereas breast, colorectal and lung cancer are the top three among women.</p>
<p>But the factors that lead to this difference between the genders all affect us later in life, and should not <a href="http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancerinchildren/detailedguide/cancer-in-children-risk-factors-and-causes">apply to children</a>. Yet the present data shows that more boys than girls are diagnosed with cancer worldwide.</p>
<h2>The same risk</h2>
<p>Survival rates of childhood cancers have increased dramatically in high-income countries. More than 80% of child cancer patients are expected to survive at least five years in the <a href="https://www.cancer.gov/types/childhood-cancers/child-adolescent-cancers-fact-sheet">United States</a> and <a href="http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/childrens-cancers/survival">UK</a>. Unfortunately, survival rates are still very poor in many developing countries. </p>
<p>There is no obvious reason for a distinction in cancer incidence in childhood. Boys and girls are at similar genetic risk for developing cancer, unless sex chromosomes are involved. </p>
<p>Sex hormones do not kick in until our mid-teens, meaning breast cancer or prostate cancer are <a href="http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancerinchildren/detailedguide/cancer-in-children-types-of-childhood-cancers">extremely rare</a> among children. Children are most affected by leukemia, lymphoma, brain tumors and embryogenic tumors such as neuroblastoma, retinoblastoma, Wilms tumor and rhabdomyosarcoma. </p>
<p>Boys and girls usually share the same environment and consume the same food; there is no occupational exposure to external carcinogens at these ages, and tobacco or alcohol consumption is low or non-existent. </p>
<p>Because the risk factors for cancer development are similar, we should see a similar incidence of cancer among boys and girls, with an expected male to female ratio of close to one – that is, for every boy who gets cancer, one girl should too. </p>
<p>Yet an analysis of <a href="http://globocan.iarc.fr/Pages/online.aspx">data</a> from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) shows this is not true.</p>
<h2>Worldwide differences</h2>
<p>IARC estimates that every year, 163,000 children between ages 0 and 14 are diagnosed with cancer worldwide. Of these, 94,000 are boys and 68,000 are girls. This leads to a global ratio of 1.37 – so four boys are diagnosed with cancer for every three girls.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144972/original/image-20161107-4688-1lg8zrq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144972/original/image-20161107-4688-1lg8zrq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gender distribution of childhood cancers worldwide.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But it’s not the same story everywhere. The male-to-female ratio is nearly one-to-one in high-income regions, including America and Australia. In Europe, the Middle East and Latin America it is less than 1.3. </p>
<p>In Southern Asia, however, the rate is higher than 1.6. </p>
<h2>Gender discrimination</h2>
<p>The reasons of this gender imbalance are not yet known. But we have some clues. As we have seen poorer countries tend to have more of a gender imbalance in childhood cancers. </p>
<p>These rates also correspond with levels of gender equality. International gender equality rankings show that in North America, Australia and Europe, women and men are <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/GII">more equal</a> than in, say, Southern Asia. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11169966">previous study</a>, published in 2001, found a similar diagnosis gap between boys and girls. The authors concluded:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Elevated sex ratios in developing countries reflect the socio-economic level of the society more than the nature and aetiology of the disease.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So the most likely reason for the gap in many countries is that girls are less likely than boys to be referred to a doctor when they fall ill. </p>
<p>If this is the reason, it should be accepted as another sign of gender discrimination against girls. And the fact that we see such a gender imbalance in cancer diagnosis between boys and girls requires urgent attention not only from scientists and researchers, but also health-care providers and governments. </p>
<h2>Taking action</h2>
<p>The Sustainable Development Goals, a set of ambitious targets adopted by the United Nations in 2015, mandate that the world must <a href="http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/gender-equality/">achieve gender equality</a> by 2030. This is an enormous task. </p>
<p>If the UN aims to end all forms of discrimination against women and girls everywhere, it must address the fact that cancer is not being diagnosed in girls at the same rate as boys. </p>
<p>All efforts should be mobilised to increase the access of girls to medical care. This will increase the rates of cancer diagnosis and allow girls to provide proper treatment, eventually closing the gap with boys.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68112/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yavuz Anacak does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There's no good reason why diagnosis rates differ. And it may be down to gender discrimination.Yavuz Anacak, Radiation oncologist, Ege UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/674982016-11-01T02:15:36Z2016-11-01T02:15:36ZWhy the Supreme Court matters for workers<p>Donald Trump touts that as president he would be good for American workers. </p>
<p>Although many of <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-talks-tough-but-his-policies-might-do-little_us_5815d1f3e4b09b190529c623">his plans are vague or possibly harmful,</a> there is one clear outcome of a Trump presidency: with the power to appoint Supreme Court justices, <a href="http://www.advocate.com/election/2016/10/10/donald-trump-vows-appoint-supreme-court-justice-mold-scalia">Trump promises to continue a conservative majority</a>. </p>
<p>We usually think of the Supreme Court in terms of what it means for abortion rights, marriage equality and the Second Amendment. At the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/19/the-final-trump-clinton-debate-transcript-annotated/">third presidential debate</a>, that’s what we heard. </p>
<p>Trump vowed to appoint justices in the mold of the late Antonin Scalia who would be hostile to Roe v. Wade and bolster gun rights. Hillary Clinton said her nominees would support women’s rights, marriage equality and reverse <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/18/11527/citizens-united-decision-and-why-it-matters">Citizens United</a>. </p>
<p>The candidates did not, however, address the Supreme Court’s substantial impact on the workplace – an impact that’s often ignored amid these hot-button issues.</p>
<p>Almost five decades of a conservative Court majority have sharply limited the rights of workers to unionize, form class actions and fight discrimination. The results have been profound and help explain the deterioration of the working class and the rise of <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2425296">economic inequality</a> in recent decades.</p>
<p>The court is now in a 4-4 split between liberal and conservative justices. The Senate’s refusal to confirm President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Scalia means it’s likely the next occupant of the Oval Office will get to pick who fills that seat – and possibly several more. That will determine the kind of court Americans have for years or even decades to come.</p>
<p>Conservative appointments by a President Trump would likely continue the decimation of workplace justice, particularly collective efforts to improve working conditions and pay. As <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2836671.">I have documented</a>, a look back at some of the court’s recent rulings shows how. </p>
<h2>Killing off the class action</h2>
<p>Take the case of <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/wal-mart-v-dukes/">Wal-Mart v. Dukes</a>. </p>
<p>In 2001, past and present female workers of Wal-Mart sued the company for paying and promoting them less than their male counterparts. The workers joined together to file a class action – a legal procedure that makes it possible for relatively small claims to be aggregated so that plaintiffs can afford to bring a case. They are also <a href="http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1054&amp;context=nulr_online">far more efficient</a> for our judicial system than hearing scores of similar claims separately. </p>
<p>Yet in 2011, <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/564/10-277/">Justice Scalia wrote</a> the opinion for a 5-4 majority that Wal-Mart was essentially too big to sue. Scalia said the plaintiff’s claims lacked a common basis and scoffed at the notion that Wal-Mart’s discretionary pay and promotion system could result in company-wide discrimination. </p>
<p>In dissent, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/10-277.ZX.html">Justice Ruth Ginsburg countered</a> that discrimination is most likely to flourish in discretionary systems like Wal-mart’s due to stereotyped assumptions that managers make about female employees, even unconsciously. </p>
<p>As a result of the ruling, the <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2232349">effectiveness</a> of the class action tool in employment cases <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-impact-and-echoes-of-the-wal-mart-discrimination-case">has been reduced</a>.</p>
<p>Then, in 2016, the court – without Justice Scalia – <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/14-1146_0pm1.pdf">declined to expand Wal-Mart v. Dukes</a> (in a 6-2 vote) by resisting an employer’s bid to disallow statistical evidence in all class actions. </p>
<p>In that case, employees at a Tyson pork processing plant used statistics to establish the amount of time they were not paid for taking on and off their protective gear. Statistical sampling was necessary because Tyson failed to keep accurate time records. The analysis showed that employees spent an average of 18 to about 21 minutes on this task, depending on their job duties. This additional time made some employees eligible for overtime pay.</p>
<p>As a result of the case, the use of statistics in class action cases <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2860332">will continue to be hotly litigated</a>.</p>
<h2>Eroding the right to organize</h2>
<p>In the past, one of the key ways workers have improved their pay and working conditions is by forming a union. </p>
<p>Indeed, collective bargaining is associated with a <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/benefits-of-collective-bargaining/">wage premium of 13.6 percent</a>, compared with workers who aren’t covered by such an agreement. Conversely, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-us-labor-unions-and-why-they-still-matter-38263">ongoing decline in union membership</a> is a key factor in growing economic inequality, <a href="http://asr.sagepub.com/content/76/4/513.short">depressing wages</a> of union and non-union members alike. </p>
<p>The Supreme Court has helped accelerate that decline. In 2014, the court struck down a 2003 law granting home health care workers in Illinois who are paid by Medicaid the right to collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/harris-v-quinn/">Justice Samuel Alito concluded</a> for the 5-4 majority that the First Amendment prohibited the state from requiring these workers to pay union dues. In so doing, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/431/209">he circumvented years of precedent</a> upholding union dues for public employees as necessary to prevent <a href="https://theconversation.com/right-to-works-rapid-spread-is-creating-more-union-free-riders-38805">free-riding by non-members</a> and to give the state a single entity for negotiating purposes. </p>
<p>In dissent, <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/harris-v-quinn/">Justice Elena Kagan described</a> the labor instability that would result from the court’s ruling. She also noted evidence that collective bargaining helped the workers double their wages, obtain health insurance and receive better training and enhanced workplace safety. Those benefits could vanish without collective bargaining, harming not only the workers but also the elderly and disabled people for whom they care. </p>
<p>Scalia’s sudden death in February ended up giving unions a reprieve in another important case involving the constitutionality of requiring public workers to pay their fair share of union dues, even if they aren’t a member. That case, <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/friedrichs-v-california-teachers-association/">Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association</a>, was heard in January, with a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/13/the-most-significant-case-that-could-be-immediately-affected-by-scalias-death/">skeptical Scalia</a> in attendance, but in March the Court issued a 4-4 decision that left a lower court’s decision upholding such fees intact. </p>
<p>Split decisions mean whatever ruling immediately preceded the hearing before the Supreme Court stands but doesn’t create a precedent. This issue will arise again, and, obviously, the next justice will tilt the balance.</p>
<h2>Health care and religious belief</h2>
<p>Health care is another area where a slim conservative majority has rolled back worker protections. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/sebelius-v-hobby-lobby-stores-inc/">Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.</a>, Hobby Lobby and other privately held employers objected on religious grounds to paying for certain forms of legally mandated contraceptive coverage for millions of employees and their dependents. The court in 2014 upheld the employers’ religious claims in a 5-4 ruling.</p>
<p>In so doing, the court privileged the religious beliefs of business owners against the health care needs of employees. The decision overturned part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-women-even-a-small-co-pay-for-contraception-can-be-a-big-deal-41877">Affordable Care Act</a> – a law passed through our democratic process with an express purpose of expanding preventative care for women and reducing gender inequities in the cost of care. </p>
<p>The connection between access to contraception and the economic success of women is <a href="http://theconversation.com/how-limiting-womens-access-to-birth-control-and-abortions-hurts-the-economy-57546">clear cut</a>. To succeed in education and in the workplace, women need the ability to control the timing and size of their families.<br>
The Hobby Lobby ruling expresses a robust view of equality for corporations but none for women. It might spread to other areas as well. As <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/06/read-justice-ginsburgs-passionate-35-page-dissent-in-the-hobby-lobby-decision/373703/">Justice Ginsburg asked</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Suppose an employer’s sincerely held religious belief is offended by health coverage of vaccines, or paying the minimum wage, or according women equal pay for substantially similar work?”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Obama Administration <a href="http://kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/round-2-on-the-legal-challenges-to-contraceptive-coverage-are-nonprofits-substantially-burdened-by-the-accommodation/">approved accommodations</a> for religious employers to avoid paying for employees’ contraceptive coverage directly. All they had to do was fill out a form, and, under the accommodation, insurers would pay for it instead. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/zubik-v-burwell/">Some non-profit religious employers objected</a> to even that and took their claim to the Supreme Court earlier this year.</p>
<p>Apparently at an impasse and without a ninth justice, the court sent the government and the religious employers <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-supreme-courts-non-sensical-ruling-in-zubik/482967/">back to the drawing board</a> to find a solution. Thus, it remains unresolved – for now – whether the Obama Administration’s accommodation on birth control coverage is lawful. And once again, who fills Scalia’s seat will likely determine whether such coverage remains a part of Obamacare for employees of religious employers. </p>
<h2>The Supreme Court matters</h2>
<p>These are just a few of the more significant cases of recent years in which a slim conservative majority has rolled back worker rights. </p>
<p>It’s likely that these issues will continue to be fought in the courts and find their way to the Supreme Court, along with many others. Simply put, a Trump-appointed Justice is far more likely, in my view, to rule against workers than a Clinton nominee. </p>
<p>Whatever impact his other policies would have on the working class, it is clear his appointments for the highest court in the land would hurt workers and make it that much harder for them to join together to fight for their rights.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67498/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michele Gilman is affiliated with the Women&#39;s Law Center of Maryland and the ACLU of Maryland. She is a registered Democrat and has donated to Democrats in the past. </span></em></p>A Trump victory on Nov. 8 would preserve a conservative majority on the court. A look back at its recent decisions shows why that would be very bad for workers' rights.Michele Gilman, Venable Professor of Law, University of BaltimoreLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/659712016-09-27T14:39:51Z2016-09-27T14:39:51ZCan quotas make gender equality happen in politics? Lessons from business<p>The number of women MPs in the British parliament is the highest it’s ever been. There are 191 women among the 650 MPs, <a href="http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN01250">up a third from the 2010 election</a>. This has to be good news, especially for the many critics of national politics who complain that too many politicians are white male graduates of one or two English universities. </p>
<p>And, of course, the UK has a second woman living in 10 Downing Street as prime minister. So things are changing for the better, aren’t they? Politics is becoming a more progressive profession, isn’t it? And the British electorate is more accepting of women making laws and developing policy, no? </p>
<p>Possibly. It’s easy to overlook the startling fact there are more men currently sitting as MPs in this parliament than the total number of women elected to serve since 1918. This shows that there is a long history to consider when we think about equality and discrimination in professions and organisations – a legacy that will take a long time to fade. Change is happening. But it is slow, and it is tempting to assume that all is well because there is some progress made on the numbers. Politics has a few lessons to learn from business on this front.</p>
<h2>A long legacy</h2>
<p>Beyond the numbers, the culture of work environments is incredibly important for addressing gender inequalities. Academics working in Sweden, often put forward in media and popular culture as the place where gender equality is most advanced, tell us that simply “body counting” the number of women doesn’t mean that equality has been achieved. Cultural change <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/43509371_Beyond_body-counting_A_discussion_of_the_social_construction_of_gender">takes a lot longer</a>, if it can be achieved at all. It’s easy to underestimate how resilient organisational cultures are in the face of attempts to manage or change them, especially in the longest lived such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/oxfords-first-female-vice-chancellor-wont-end-gender-inequality-on-her-own-42567">universities</a> or parliaments. </p>
<p>The progressive change we see in the number of women working as MPs is largely due to the implementation of quotas. Danish academic <a href="https://drudedahlerup.com/">Drude Dahlerup</a> has been tracking the introduction of quotas in parliaments around the world for many years. Her research is as clear as can be in its conclusions – significant change <a href="http://www.quotaproject.org/">doesn’t happen without quotas</a> and, even then, progress in increasing women’s representation can be rolled back quickly. </p>
<p>The same is seen in conventional workplaces. British business leaders have long resisted the imposition of quotas for executive boards, despite overseeing one of the world’s most dismal records in promoting the many competent women working at lower levels. Recent government threats to introduce quotas provoked some change, <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-women-on-ftse-100-boards-but-still-not-enough-33854">but in a limited way</a> – women tend to be appointed to relatively low status, less powerful non-executive positions. This gives the semblance of gender parity, but business <a href="http://www.wearethecity.com/linchpin-men-middle-managers-and-gender-inclusive-leadership-elisabeth-kelan-professor-of-leadership-cranfield-university/">continues as usual in the background</a>.</p>
<p>There are strong signs that the same dynamics apply in politics. Although it is the Conservatives that have elected two women leaders, the Labour Party has made a greater effort at boosting its number of women MPs, <a href="www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN05057.pdf">using all-women shortlists since 1995</a>. Initiatives that rely on voluntary action to improve gender equality have a limited effect. The Conservatives, for example, count just 68 women MPs out of the current cohort’s 329. Only enforced quotas achieve the kind of rapid numerical change we need in the 21st century. </p>
<h2>Changing culture</h2>
<p>But still, all the organisational research tells us very clearly that deep-rooted patterns of “how things are done around here” are key to whether a workplace is hostile or welcoming to people who don’t fit the white male norm. And underlying an organisation’s culture is its <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/43509371_Beyond_body-counting_A_discussion_of_the_social_construction_of_gender">sense of identity</a>. In political parties, identity is important in terms of ethical priorities and what kind of person is envisaged as a valid leader. Early analysis of a data we’ve collected using interviews on Labour’s use of all-women shortlists points towards some optimistic but also some depressing conclusions.</p>
<p>The positive: gender equality advocates have won a series of pitched battles to get all-women selections for the safest parliamentary seats. These have sometimes been bitter, with an early setback in the Welsh seat of Blaenau Gwent which Labour lost <a href="http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/battle-lines-drawn-blaenau-gwent-2094740">following the decision to run an all-women list</a>. But party staff are becoming far more skilled at managing the selection and implementation of all-women shortlists. Proponents of all-women shortlists have also succeeded at convincing party members that the commitment to “equality” and “democracy” should extend to gender equality and opening access to the democratic process for all. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139419/original/image-20160927-22626-1s4p2df.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What most MPs look like.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">PA/PA Wire</span></span>
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<p>In a more negative sense, our interviews suggest that the culture of the profession has not progressed as much as it could. While we heard that parties in more affluent, metropolitan constituencies were now more likely to select a woman candidate or accept an all-women shortlist without too many grumbles, the picture remains quite bleak in other areas, including Westminster. </p>
<p>We heard tales of highly competent and successful MPs, women who had held their seats for more than a decade, still facing down misogynist attitudes and comments from local members and parliamentary colleagues. We also heard concerns from party staff that all-women shortlists might, in the short-term, have re-enforced patriarchy by creating a segregated system where men nearly always win open selections. The embedded picture of an MP as <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahjewell/simply-stroking-her-arm?utm_term=.lixwbVoxE#.ojjv08YVw">a white middle-aged man</a> is a difficult professional identity to disrupt.</p>
<p>Politics as a profession is notorious for permitting <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13211577">and even celebrating macho behaviour</a>. This excludes not just women but also anyone who isn’t willing to conform. Reproducing a destructive and exclusive culture is something that the Labour Party, despite its great success in rebalancing the numbers in terms of women MPs, has been criticised for this year. And a number of women Labour MPs <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36864903">have complained of bullying and harassment</a>, particularly online. </p>
<p>Cultural change is slow, difficult, and dependent on everyone’s commitment in practice, not just rhetoric. Actually seeing successful women in the UK’s elected parliaments and assemblies is important, but embedding gender equality as something normal will involve a much longer and deeper process of engagement with identity and ethical practice in organisation and individual behaviour.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65971/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Are quotas the best way to challenge sexism and discrimination in politics and workplaces?Scott Taylor, Reader in Leadership and Organisation Studies, University of BirminghamOwain Smolović Jones, Lecturer in Organisation Studies, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/638552016-09-07T02:45:43Z2016-09-07T02:45:43ZPsychology behind the unfunny consequences of jokes that denigrate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136477/original/image-20160902-20232-1irrld7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;rect=222%2C175%2C2380%2C1328&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A joke isn&#39;t just a joke.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/elycefeliz/6354197379">elycefeliz</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Q: Why did the woman cross the road?</p>
<p>A: Who cares! What the hell is she doing out of the kitchen?</p>
<p>Q: Why hasn’t NASA sent a woman to the moon?</p>
<p>A: It doesn’t need cleaning yet!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These two jokes represent <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/HUMOR.2008.014">disparagement humor</a> – any attempt to amuse through the denigration of a social group or its representatives. You know it as sexist or racist jokes – basically anything that makes a punchline out of a marginalized group.</p>
<p>Disparagement humor is paradoxical: It <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(93)90111-2">simultaneously communicates two conflicting messages</a>. One is an <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/tps0000052">explicit hostile or prejudiced message</a>. But delivered alongside is a second implicit message that “it doesn’t count as hostility or prejudice because I didn’t mean it — <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/humor-2013-0017">it’s just a joke</a>.” </p>
<p>By disguising expressions of prejudice in a cloak of fun and frivolity, disparagement humor, like the jokes above, appears harmless and trivial. However, a large and growing body of psychology research suggests just the opposite – that disparagement humor can foster discrimination against targeted groups.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136814/original/image-20160906-25272-1dm9zwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136814/original/image-20160906-25272-1dm9zwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<span class="caption">Laughing together at others’ expense?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=303185990">Laughing image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span>
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<h2>Jokes that release restraints</h2>
<p>Most of the time <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00244">prejudiced people conceal their true beliefs and attitudes</a> because they fear others’ criticism. They <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.129.3.414">express prejudice only when</a> the norms in a given context clearly communicate approval to do so. They need something in the immediate environment to signal that it is safe to freely express their prejudice.</p>
<p>Disparagement humor appears to do just that by affecting people’s understanding of the social norms – implicit rules of acceptable conduct – in the immediate context. And in a variety of experiments, my colleagues and I have found support for this idea, which we call <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/S15327957PSPR0801_4">prejudiced norm theory</a>.</p>
<p>For instance, in studies, men higher in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.70.3.491">hostile sexism</a> – antagonism against women – reported greater tolerance of gender harassment in the workplace upon <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.56">exposure to sexist versus neutral (nonsexist) jokes</a>. Men higher in hostile sexism also recommended greater funding cuts to a women’s organization at their university <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167207310022">after watching sexist versus neutral comedy skits</a>. Even more disturbing, other researchers found that men higher in hostile sexism <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0099198">expressed greater willingness to rape a woman</a> upon exposure to sexist versus nonsexist humor.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136817/original/image-20160906-25272-3hvpnh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136817/original/image-20160906-25272-3hvpnh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<span class="caption">Sexist humor can expand the bounds of what’s an acceptable way to treat women.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thomas E. Ford</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>How did sexist humor make the sexist men in these studies feel freer to express their sexist attitudes? Imagine that the social norms about acceptable and unacceptable ways of treating women are represented by a rubber band. Everything on the inside of the rubber band is socially acceptable; everything on the outside is unacceptable.</p>
<p>Sexist humor essentially stretched the rubber band; it expanded the bounds of acceptable behavior to include responses that would otherwise be considered wrong or inappropriate. So, in this context of expanded acceptability, sexist men felt free to express their antagonism without the risk of violating social norms and facing disapproval from others. Sexist humor signaled that it’s safe to express sexist attitudes.</p>
<h2>Who’s the target?</h2>
<p>In another study, my colleagues and I demonstrated that this prejudice-releasing effect of disparagement humor varies depending on the position in society occupied by the butt of the joke. Social groups are <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1368430213502558">vulnerable to different degrees</a> depending on their overall status. </p>
<p>Some groups occupy a <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Stereotyping-and-Prejudice/Stangor-Crandall/p/book/9781848726444">unique social position of what social psychologists call “shifting acceptability.”</a> For these groups, the overall culture is changing from considering prejudice and discrimination against them completely justified to considering them completely unjustified. But even as society as a whole becomes increasingly accepting of them, many individuals still harbor mixed feelings. </p>
<p>For instance, over the past 60 years or so, the United States has seen a dramatic decline in overt and institutional racism. Public opinion polls over the same period have shown whites holding progressively <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&amp;uid=1986-98698-003">less prejudiced views of minorities</a>, particularly blacks. At the same time, however, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2009.00183.x">many whites still covertly</a> have negative associations with and feelings toward blacks – feelings they largely don’t acknowledge because they conflict with their ideas about themselves being egalitarian.</p>
<p>Disparagement humor fosters discrimination against social groups – like black Americans – that occupy this kind of shifting ground. In our study, we found that off-color jokes <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/1368430213502558">promoted discrimination against Muslims and gay men</a> – which we measured in greater recommended budget cuts to a gay student organization, for instance. However, disparagement humor didn’t have the same effect against two “justified prejudice” groups: terrorists and racists. Social norms are such that people didn’t need to wait for jokes to justify expressions of prejudice against these groups.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136815/original/image-20160906-25266-ocnugf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136815/original/image-20160906-25266-ocnugf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<span class="caption">I’m not sure I see the humor….</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=385843477">Woman image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span>
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<p>An important implication of these findings is that disparagement humor can be more or less detrimental based on the social position occupied by the targeted groups. Movies, television programs or comedy clips that humorously disparage groups such as gays, Muslims or women can potentially foster discrimination and social injustice, whereas those that target groups such as racists will have little social consequence.</p>
<p>On the basis of these findings, one might conclude that disparagement humor targeting oppressed or disadvantaged groups is inherently destructive and thus should be censured. However, the real problem might not be with the humor itself but rather with an audience’s dismissive viewpoint that “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/tps0000052">a joke is just a joke</a>,” even if disparaging. One study found that such a “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0019627">cavalier humor belief</a>” might indeed be responsible for some of the negative effects of disparagement humor. For prejudiced people, the belief that “a disparaging joke is just a joke” trivializes the mistreatment of historically oppressed social groups – including women, gay people, racial minorities and religious minorities – which further contributes to their prejudiced attitude.</p>
<h2>Can you be ‘in on the joke’?</h2>
<p>In addition, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/tps0000057">if one initiates disparagement humor</a> with the positive intention of <a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/ABC-CLIOCorporate/product.aspx?pc=D6591C">exposing the absurdity of stereotypes and prejudice</a>, the humor ironically might have the potential to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/tps0000059">subvert or undermine prejudice</a>.</p>
<p>Chris Rock is one comedian well-known for using subversive disparagement humor to challenge the status quo of racial inequality in the United States. For instance, in his <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/29/movies/chris-rock-monologue.html?_r=0">opening monologue for the 2016 Academy Awards</a>, he used humor to call attention to racism in the film industry and hierarchical race relations more generally: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the White People’s Choice Awards. You realize if they nominated hosts, I wouldn’t even get this job. So y’all would be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The problem is that in order for the humor to realize its goal of subverting prejudice, the audience must understand and appreciate that intention. And there’s <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/tps0000059">no guarantee that they will</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/chappelles-story#ixzz4HFUHcnHg">Comedian Dave Chappelle described</a> this interpretation problem in an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2006. He discussed a skit in which he played a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xprpXDnIU6A">pixie who appeared in black face</a>. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There was a good-spirited intention behind it. So then when I’m on the set, and we’re finally taping the sketch, somebody on the set [who] was white laughed in such a way – I know the difference of people laughing with me and people laughing at me – and it was the first time I had ever gotten a laugh that I was uncomfortable with. Not just uncomfortable, but like, should I fire this person?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Chapelle’s intentions with his racially charged comedy were misunderstood. By lampooning the stereotype, he meant to call attention to the ridiculousness of racism. However, it became apparent that not everyone was capable of or motivated to look past Chapelle’s comic stereotypical portrayal to get his subversive intent. </p>
<p>One study found that people higher in prejudice are particularly <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1974.tb00353.x">prone to misinterpret subversive humor</a>. Researchers in the 1970s studied amusement with the television show “All in the Family,” which focused on the bigoted character Archie Bunker. They found that low-prejudiced people perceived “All in the Family” as a satire on bigotry and that Archie Bunker was the target of the humor. They “got” the true subversive intent of the show.</p>
<p>In contrast, high-prejudiced people enjoyed the show for satirizing the targets of Archie’s prejudice. Thus, for high-prejudiced people, the subversive disparagement humor of the show backfired. Rather than calling attention to the absurdity of prejudice, for them the show communicated an implicit prejudiced norm, conveying a tolerance of discrimination.</p>
<p>Psychology research suggests that disparagement humor is far more than “just a joke.” Regardless of its intent, when prejudiced people interpret disparagement humor as “just a joke” intended to make fun of its target and not prejudice itself, it can have serious social consequences as a releaser of prejudice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63855/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas E. Ford has received funding for research described in this article from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>Disparagement humor makes a punchline out of a marginalized group. Racist or sexist jokes, for instance, aren't just harmless fun – psychologists find they can foster discrimination.Thomas E. Ford, Professor of Social Psychology, Western Carolina UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/579522016-08-24T01:58:15Z2016-08-24T01:58:15ZWhy silence continues to surround pregnancy discrimination in the workplace<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135249/original/image-20160824-30212-lwq4a8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hourly workers make up the lion&#39;s share of pregnancy discrimination cases. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pregnant worker via www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the 2016 presidential election, we’ve seen an unusual amount of interest in issues regarding gender equality in the workplace. Discussions of equal pay, the glass ceiling and affordable child care are not typical talking points in presidential elections.</p>
<p>Ivanka Trump, for example, <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/07/25/ivanka-donald-trump-rnc-women/">said her father supported equal pay and motherhood</a> in the workplace, as well as affordable and accessible child care (though these issues have not been broached by Donald Trump himself nor articulated in the <a href="https://www.gop.com/the-2016-republican-party-platform/">Republican platform</a>). </p>
<p>Hillary Clinton, as the first woman nominee from a major party, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/hillary-clinton-breaks-glass-ceiling-introduction-video-dnc-40912726">has made gender equality</a> in the workplace a central issue of her campaign. At the Democratic National Convention, her introduction framed her campaign as finally breaking the glass ceiling of the presidency, making it an office that now all girls can aspire to hold. </p>
<p>The more specific issue of pregnancy in the workforce, on the other hand, has not been addressed by either party or candidate. A singular exception to the candidates’ lack of attention was an <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-2004-pregnancy-inconvenience-employers-n580366">interview</a> Trump gave in 2004 in which <a href="http://www.politifact.com/ohio/statements/2016/jun/24/hillary-clinton/clinton-trump-called-pregnant-employees-inconvenie/">he noted that pregnancy</a> was an “inconvenience” to employers. </p>
<p>Part of the reason for this, I believe, is that scholars have largely failed to study the issue. When researchers do address pregnancy and employment, they tend to focus on the exceptions or women in professional and managerial employment, not the lives of working-class women. </p>
<p>“<a href="http://www.palgrave.com/de/book/9781137343048">Pregnancy and the American Worker</a>,” a new book I coauthored with James Dahl, aims to remedy this lack of scholarship by examining how U.S. courts have interpreted pregnancy discrimination under the two acts meant to prevent it. Our research suggests that one reason the issue has received so little attention is that pregnancy discrimination disproportionately affects hourly workers – typically poor or working class – a group often without a voice and frequently ignored by political elites.</p>
<iframe width="100%" height="450" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q6qkJhbA7p0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<h2>The PDA and ADA</h2>
<p>All employees, but especially women, struggle with the balance of work and family throughout their working lives. </p>
<p>While American women have made significant progress toward gender equality in the workplace – <a href="http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-databook-2013.pdf">almost doubling</a> their participation rate to 57 percent from 32 percent in 1960 – the successes have been accompanied by a growing problem of pregnancy discrimination. </p>
<p>Charges alleging pregnancy discrimination have increased substantially since the <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/pregnancy.cfm">Pregnancy Discrimination Act</a> (PDA) was enacted in 1978, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). More recently, 5,342 <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/pregnancy_guidance.cfm">charges were filed</a> with the EEOC and state and local Fair Employment Practices Agencies in fiscal year 2013, up from more than 3,900 in 1997. </p>
<p>In 2014, pregnancy-related lawsuits made up <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/pregnancy_fact_sheet_litigation.cfm">almost 20 percent</a> of all EEOC suits asserting employment discrimination filed under <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/titlevii.cfm">Title VII of the Civil Rights Act</a>, one of the two legal avenues for protecting pregnant workers. Congress created that protection when it passed the PDA and amended Title VII to include “pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions” as falling under the barriers against sex discrimination.</p>
<p>The other is the <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/history/35th/1990s/ada.html">Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990</a> (amended and expanded in 2008), which requires that disabled individuals (in certain cases those who are pregnant) be treated no worse than able-bodied individuals. The statute sometimes requires that employers provide accommodations to acquire an equal effect in the workplace. These two statutes rely on different definitions of equality. </p>
<p>The ADA is a model of substantive equality in which the equal experience of pregnant women in the workplace is the determining factor. So a pregnant worker may need adjustments made to her work expectations, different from other employees, in order to be successful. The formal equality model of Title VII, on the other hand, requires that the law treat pregnant and nonpregnant workers similarly to achieve equality. </p>
<h2>Who are the litigants?</h2>
<p>So where do all these complaints come from and how do the courts handle the cases?</p>
<p>Because <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/09/when-bosses-discriminate-against-pregnant-women/380623">many of the people</a> who write about <a href="http://pregnantthenscrewed.com/">their experiences</a> with pregnancy discrimination disproportionately reflect more skilled jobs, it may appear that upper-middle class and financially secure women file the majority of gender discrimination lawsuits. In fact, our research has found that almost three-quarters of pregnancy discrimination cases published by the federal courts originate from litigants in hourly or salaried positions with less security, such as waitresses or home health care workers.</p>
<p>This is consistent with <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Pregnant-Men-Practice-Theory-Law/dp/0253313716">studies</a> finding that 50 percent of claims are filed from plaintiffs employed in predominately female industries like nursing and teaching. We found that this trend has intensified. In the years immediately following the passage of the PDA, there was a greater representation of more professionally employed litigants.</p>
<p>Plaintiffs who work in hourly positions that require manual labor, clerical or lower managerial jobs in which college degrees are generally not required made up slightly more than 63 percent of the pregnancy discrimination cases. Litigants in professional or administrative occupations (generally requiring a college degree) constituted 17.9 percent of the plaintiff pool, while less than 4 percent were in professions in which advanced degrees are required. The remaining cases in our study did not note a profession.</p>
<h2>Surprising data</h2>
<p>In some ways, these data are surprising. </p>
<p>Hourly workers are much more vulnerable to economic pressures and may be more likely to capitulate to discriminatory conditions out of a need for a paycheck, making them less likely to file a complaint. A possible explanation is that unlike their professional peers, hourly workers who have disputes have more trouble pressuring their employees to settle prior to trial. </p>
<p>Professional women, on the other hand, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-spiggle/white-collar-women-dont-s_b_8100128.html">are more familiar</a> with the legal process and employer negotiations. Our research shows they are less likely to end up in litigation for pregnancy discrimination, possibly because professional workers are more likely to be seen as an investment by their employers. The cost to recruit, train and retain them may be high enough that employers are willing to work with pregnant employees to accommodate their needs – and to settle quickly if there’s a complaint. They may also have other employment options or be unwilling to compromise their reputation in their industry by threatening litigation and therefore choose not to file charges.</p>
<p>Second, by the nature of their work, temporary interruptions or short-term disruptions are less problematic than they are for hourly employees. That is, the essential job functions are not affected by pregnancy. For example, a pregnancy for an attorney does not affect her essential job functions, unlike a postal worker who must walk miles every day. </p>
<p>In addition, as technology has afforded greater work flexibility and location, professional positions are able to adjust their demands in relationship to a pregnancy and life-work balance. </p>
<p>By contrast, hourly, less prestigious positions like teaching assistants, factory workers, and waitresses require more physical time on task when scheduled by a supervising authority, which means little flexibility is provided.</p>
<p>Thus hourly and lower management personnel may be more likely to be perceived as disposable and easily replaced by the employer, so why bother accommodating them? </p>
<h2>Success in the courts</h2>
<p>A final surprising finding of our research concerns the outcome of these court cases. </p>
<p>Interestingly, we found that these economically more vulnerable plaintiffs – who make up most cases – were more likely to be successful in both district and appellate courts. In contrast, those who we might seem to be more powerful and likely to succeed – those with advanced degrees – were the least successful. </p>
<p>Why would this be the case?</p>
<p>One possible explanation could be because those with more power in the workplace and stronger claims were able to receive settlements from employers and avoid litigation, leaving only the weaker claims to be settled in court. In our research, we found that courts have generally been more supportive of challenges against pregnancy discrimination that are based on Title VII – in which pregnant employees have been treated differently from nonpregnant ones – than challenges based on a lack of accommodation. Most recently, in a <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/12-1226_k5fl.pdf">2016 decision</a>, the Supreme Court provided a broader, more expansive interpretation of Title VII that may allow pregnant workers who face neutral policies that disproportionately affect pregnant workers to challenge those policies as a violation of law.</p>
<p>The good news is that greater attention is being paid to this issue by the EEOC, which in its latest strategic plan identified the enforcement of pregnancy discrimination law as a primary goal. </p>
<p>Increasing complaints indicate that women are more likely to challenge questionable policies in the workforce, but our national discourse has not recognized this form of workplace discrimination. </p>
<p>As our politicians discuss equal pay, glass ceilings, and affordable child care as a means of reaching voters, expanding the discussion to include pregnancy discrimination may widen the universe of working women who feel their voices are being heard. At least for now, these often overlooked women are becoming more powerful in the courthouse.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57952/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle D. Deardorff received indirect funding from the National Science Foundation during the completion of this research. </span></em></p>The growing problem of pregnancy discrimination has received barely any attention on the campaign trail or among researchers, possibly because it disproportionately affects poor women.Michelle D. Deardorff, Adolph S. Ochs Professor of Government and Head of Political Science and Public Service, University of Tennessee at ChattanoogaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/584662016-05-03T13:14:45Z2016-05-03T13:14:45ZWhat will Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 mean for its citizens?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120993/original/image-20160503-19517-x781ln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;rect=33%2C30%2C958%2C512&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A new deal for the people as well as the state?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/habeebclicks/3877847590/in/photolist-6UEYZd-pwJ8y-4oXZUk-8JbGJk-b4qmZH-39jjp2-AQUqR-neSKJP-p6d3W2-okMziA-b4qtDe-81MhuT-7vQ2Qc-p91xLg-bswyVK-p6dFBW-bswG5K-845mje-neSKL2-kqYZJK-bswFNP-tUWNd-7w6Z88-pkD18Q-tUWrL-tUXuY-fJgL1h-b41BGT-4bEEqc-81QrVN-tUWQT-7odeEF-oiaEf-neSGYu-753Hbi-7LjGK2-auNGev-jnt2H-fHZaYg-ku5hR-S2XQV-b4qnR8-fJgBC1-fJgHrs-7LjGE6-p6cSja-fHZanD-8ggZoQ-fJgLrb-7dSC2q">Habeeb/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Saudi Arabia has released <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-25/key-elements-of-saudi-arabia-s-blueprint-for-life-post-oil">details of its Vision 2030</a> – an immensely ambitious plan which <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/may/1/prince-mohammed-bin-salman-of-saudi-arabia-being-g/">Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman</a> says will end the Kingdom’s dependence on oil by 2020. </p>
<p>To help reach that goal, the plan details major targets, such as the establishment of a sovereign wealth fund and the public sale of part of state oil giant Saudi Aramco, which according to some estimates might be the <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-07/too-big-to-value-why-saudi-aramco-is-in-a-league-of-its-own">biggest company in the world</a>. There will also be a limited privatisation of government assets. Such measures, if implemented successfully, would no doubt contribute to non-oil income. What is less certain, however, is what impact they will have on the lives of Saudi citizens.</p>
<p>Considering that unemployment is estimated at <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/saudi-arabias-youth-unemployment-problem-among-king-salmans-many-new-challenges-after-1793346">29% among Saudis under the age of 30</a>, job creation should be a major priority of economic reform. With a quickly rising youth population, there is little time to waste: around two thirds of the current population of 29m is under 30, and 1.9m Saudis are set to <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/saudi-arabias-youth-unemployment-problem-among-king-salmans-many-new-challenges-after-1793346">enter the workforce over the next decade</a>. Privatisation will not necessarily create the number or type of jobs needed for a growing number of Saudi citizens.</p>
<h2>Public and private</h2>
<p>The Kingdom’s workforce remains deeply segmented between an overstaffed public sector, and a drastically underdeveloped private sector. <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-saudi-economy-conference-idUKKCN0V32DI">More than two thirds of employed Saudis work in the public sector</a>, while <a href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-set-outline-grand-new-economic-vision-1108417051">more than 80% of the private sector is made up of expatriate labourers</a>. The vision implies a reduction in public sector jobs, when it states an aim to “<a href="http://www.alriyadh.com/en/article/1149991/Kingdom-of-Saudi-Arabias-Vision-2030">cut tedious bureaucracy</a>” and to decrease government spending generally. Considering that high-paying government jobs have become the norm for many Saudi citizens, decreasing their availability could drive up unemployment among nationals.</p>
<p>Significantly, the vision acknowledges the need to create jobs in new sectors, such as military manufacturing, industrial equipment, and information technology, in addition to staffing the oil and gas sector with locals. Such sectors are so specialised, however, that training would be needed to prepare Saudis for jobs within them. Further, the oil and gas sector, even if localised, would only provide a fraction of the new jobs necessary, since it does not require a large workforce. </p>
<p>To restructure the economy in a sustainable way, then, Saudi citizens will need to receive the type of education both relevant for the available private sector positions and of high enough quality for them to compete against the existing large number of expatriates currently employed in these specialised positions.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121006/original/image-20160503-19546-1gi01xu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121006/original/image-20160503-19546-1gi01xu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince and Minister of Defense, Mohammed bin Salman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/secdef/26459922161/in/photolist-Gjb21v-Gq1HaB-yJpymk-yr3TAU-yr3Qb7-yGF4qq-xLLfXt-xLBYo3-yJpAZ6-yr2CAC-yr8BCT-yr8AM4-yr3RvG-yJpwRg-yGF87o-yJpwrZ-yJpxGe-yHDuXD-xLBZew-yr2Jzw-xLBWXC-wt36AG-9nMPxb-9nJP5p-9nMQdy-9nMVqh-9nJMdn-9nJVpi-EEAaH-9nJNVT-q9osz-9nJXfe-9nMRrG-9nJSVP-9nJM1P-9nJPVi-9nJQmD-9nMP5J-9nMZbE-q9or9-ap6qPX-9nJPrk-9nJQup-9nMPdA-9nJQdt-9nMRfA-9nMS8A-9nJMzB-9nJQ5V-8M2LFt">Ash Carter/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Lower- and middle-income Saudi citizens are also likely to feel the effects of subsidy reductions. The plan acknowledges this issue, pledging that it will “provide our most vulnerable citizens with <a href="http://www.alriyadh.com/en/article/1149991/Kingdom-of-Saudi-Arabias-Vision-2030">tailored care and support</a>”. Lacking an income tax system and reliable and recent census statistics, it will be near impossible to determine which families are, in fact, the most vulnerable. Since the Vision clearly states that income taxes will not be levied, there will not be a straightforward means to determine which Saudis are worse off economically.</p>
<h2>Social impacts of liberalisation</h2>
<p>Housing is another area in which Saudi citizens face considerable challenges. The Vision 2030 project claims that 47% of Saudi families own their own homes and pledges to increase this proportion five percentage points by 2020. It proposes to do so by encouraging private sector firms to enter the market and by urging banks to provide mortgage and funding solutions for citizens. In principle, this solution makes sense, since government attempts to resolve the housing crisis have been largely unsuccessful due to bureaucratic hurdles and the lack of large developers. </p>
<p>Still, a substantial amount of <a href="http://www.arabianbusiness.com/saudi-white-land-tax-could-lead-50-slump-in-property-prices--630282.html">undeveloped “white land”</a> has stunted growth inside Saudi Arabia, and the only means of leading to its release is the imposition of fees or taxes on owners. Further, where private developers have come into the Gulf, especially in Qatar and the UAE, they have tended to build projects <a href="http://www.albawaba.com/business/qatars-lack-affordable-housing-prevalent-issue-rental-costs-escalate-818056">too expensive for a majority of the citizenry</a>. Privatisation, then, does not necessarily heal all economic shortcomings.</p>
<p>Aside from problematic economics, the plan also highlights government attempts to make social changes. It references the need to increase entertainment and cultural activities for citizens, with plans for the establishment of <a href="http://www.alriyadh.com/en/article/1149991/Kingdom-of-Saudi-Arabias-Vision-2030">more than 450 registered amateur clubs for culture and entertainment by 2020</a>. The Saudi government, while aiming to decrease its involvement in the economic sphere, appears hopeful of increasing it in the cultural and social realm through creating its own civil society sector.</p>
<p>The social impact of opening up to tourists and more expatriates through a green card system would also be significant. Several statements have reiterated that limits will be put on any additional influx of non-Saudis; for instance, the country “<a href="http://www.arabianbusiness.com/saudi-arabia-plans-new-visa-regulations-boost-tourism-629812.html">will be open for tourism again on a selected basis</a>.” Mohammed bin Salman himself said that tourists would be allowed into the Kingdom “<a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/en/media/inside-the-newsroom/2016/04/25/Full-Transcript-of-Prince-Mohammed-bin-Salman-s-Al-Arabiya-interview.html">in accordance with our values and beliefs</a>”. It is unclear how the state will screen potential tourists or immigrants using such criteria, however.</p>
<h2>Equality or ambition?</h2>
<p>The plan also alludes to increasing the percentage of women in the workforce from 22% to 30% by 2030. How would this happen? Would there be further limits on the types of places and hours during which women can work? At present, women are banned from working in unsegregated places, and there are persistent calls to place limits on how late they can work or in what types of institutions they can be employed. Further, with subsidies reduced, women who once were <a href="http://www.theweek.co.uk/60339/eleven-things-women-in-saudi-arabia-cant-do">able to afford drivers</a> may be less able to employ them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121020/original/image-20160503-19847-r6trtc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121020/original/image-20160503-19847-r6trtc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<span class="caption">Saudi women in Riyadh.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/92278137@N04/10755450904/in/photolist-hoquQG-azN25J-4nWF67-9osD3P-4ez6tk-fH2mYW-8MCUGP-adJgT6-9UoZ5n-bEVhQi-fGJMLg-qumn3y-9UteNQ-fGJMWF-9UqqAX-4nSAAe-9UteVE-boTWgE-9MH65B-9Utfpm-9UtfgU-9UqqPP-9UqqpV-9u7fUZ-9Uqrfa-6P6guu-jCjXwt-9UqqeT-8WP6qJ-9Uqr9D-9kahiu-4nWEnY-82N9pJ-A6ndg-dWWQG1-apPrfU-ryJTqW-6swfe8-fGJMCt-fGJMGc-bWPqcH-fGJMpe-fH2mUh-33jjj8-gjedXx-93L1Hq-5KmxBY-9ummpa-8TmNoJ-8SgeoT">Tribes of the World/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the plan reiterates the importance of maintaining Saudi culture and religion, including with the world’s largest Islamic Museum, it does ultimately hope to effect economic change, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-plan-society-idUSKCN0XN2F0">focusing the education system on “market needs” rather than on religion</a>. </p>
<p>The Vision 2030 project is, in a sense, <a href="http://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/employment-and-growth/moving-saudi-arabias-economy-beyond-oil">a reflection of the Western consultants</a> who assisted in its drafting. That the deputy crown prince largely turned to them, rather than to fellow Saudis, to craft a vision to localise and liberalise the domestic economy demonstrates how much he is looking to the West for an economic model. As such, the document seeks to apply sweeping economic and social changes without considering their feasibility or their effects on ordinary Saudi citizens. Even if implemented seamlessly, the vision could provoke new economic and social issues inside the Kingdom.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58466/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Courtney Freer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Grand plans designed to reduce reliance on oil will struggle to create an economy which helps all the Kingdom's subjects.Courtney Freer, Research Officer, London School of Economics and Political ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/581172016-04-22T11:52:28Z2016-04-22T11:52:28ZFact Check: did the European Court of Justice increase the price of insurance for women?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119633/original/image-20160421-27007-r0pgyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Valua Vitaly/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The European Court now has the perfect legal excuse to grab more power – the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which goes even further than the older post-war European Convention on Human Rights … It has even used the charter to increase the price of insurance for women.</em></p>
<p><strong>Michael Gove, justice secretary, in <a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/voteleave/pages/271/attachments/original/1461057270/MGspeech194VERSION2.pdf?1461057270">a speech</a> on April 19 at the Vote Leave offices in London.</strong></p>
<p>Gove claims that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) had used the <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:12012P/TXT&amp;from=EN">EU Charter of Fundamental Rights</a> (the EU Charter) “to increase the price of insurance for women”. The ECJ, however, cannot make decisions about the price of insurance and it did not do so in this case. It is common practice to charge different premiums to men and women based on risk assessments, for example because women are seen as safer drivers. But this practice also happens in other types of insurance such as life or health.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://curia.europa.eu/juris/celex.jsf?celex=62009CJ0236&amp;lang1=en&amp;type=TXT&amp;ancre">Case C-236/09</a>, which Gove refers to in footnotes to his speech, is known as Test-Achats because of the Belgian consumer association who brought the case. The ECJ was asked by the Belgian Constitutional Court to consider whether discrimination in the price of insurance on the basis of sex is contrary to the principle of equal treatment between men and women.</p>
<p>Under <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:373:0037:0043:en:PDF">EU law</a> the price of insurance cannot be different on the basis of sex. Yet, EU law allowed for an exception permitting such differences where sex is a determining factor in the assessment of risk. Test-Achats challenged the lawfulness of this exception, arguing that it went against the objective of EU law to combat discrimination based on sex.</p>
<p>In its 2011 ruling, the ECJ noted that by applying the exception, there was a risk that insurers were indefinitely permitted to discriminate in the price of insurance, for instance by charging men more for insurance than women.</p>
<p>The ECJ recalled that under Articles 21 and 23 of the EU Charter, respectively, any discrimination based on sex is prohibited and equality between men and women must be ensured in all areas of EU activity. It therefore ruled that the exception was a violation of the principle of equal treatment. From December 21, 2012, insurance companies could not charge different prices for men and women. In the UK, this was introduced by a <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/2992/pdfs/u%20ksi_201%2022992_en.pdf">2012 amendment</a> to the Equality Act 2010. </p>
<p>Insurance companies have to comply with the ECJ’s ruling in the Test-Achats case. The effect may be that some insurance companies could choose to increase the price of insurance for women in order to prevent discrimination against men – but it is misleading to suggest that the decision to do so (rather than lowering the cost of insurance for men) was dictated by the ECJ itself. </p>
<p>Evidence of the impact of the ruling in the UK is also limited. To take the example of car insurance, a study by the insurance website GoCompare, based on 7m car rental quotes between November 2012 and November 2013, <a href="http://www.gocompare.com/gender/">found</a> that there had been an overall £146 “reduction in premiums for men and women”. It reported that only women aged between 17 and 20 had seen a rise, by £9, but that overall, women’s premiums dropped £59. </p>
<p>Under the principle of equal treatment, similar situations must be treated in a similar manner, while different situations must be treated differently. The application of equal treatment between men and women by the ECJ has led to a strengthening of the protection of women in many areas, such as <a href="http://curia.europa.eu/juris/showPdf.jsf?text=&amp;docid=88931&amp;pageIndex=0&amp;doclang=en&amp;mode=lst&amp;dir=&amp;occ=first&amp;part=1&amp;cid=43991">equal pay for equal work</a> and the protection of <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:61a79cb0-7c8e-4507-977c-bbbc20cf4c47.0002.03/DOC_1&amp;format=PDF">pregnant workers</a>. </p>
<p>Guaranteeing equal treatment may allow for positive discrimination if it is necessary in order to eliminate inequalities which prevent the effective enjoyment of equal treatment. But such measures cannot result in discrimination against men. For example, UK legislation recently increased the pension age for women to make it the same as for men, long after the UN Human Rights Committee had already determined that <a href="https://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/undocs/html/415-1990.html">discrimination against men</a> in accessing state pensions was prohibited, as contrary to the principle of non-discrimination. </p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>The ECJ did not use the EU Charter to increase the price of insurance for women, although its ruling may have caused some adjustments in insurance industry pricing. On the contrary, the court’s ruling in Test-Achats constitutes another step on the long fight for equality between the sexes in which the ECJ has played a leading role – a consequence of which is that men cannot be discriminated against.</p>
<h2>Review</h2>
<p><em>Tamara Hervey, Jean Monnet Professor of European Law, University of Sheffield</em></p>
<p>Non-discrimination between women and men is controversial. One controversial area is who gets to decide: courts or legislatures?</p>
<p>In a democracy under the rule of law, there is a balance. As this fact check explains, in EU law, both the courts (the ECJ and national courts) and the legislature have each driven legal developments. This legislature includes the <a href="http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/european-council/">Council</a>, made up of the heads of governments of member states, the directly elected <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/aboutparliament/en">European Parliament</a>, and the <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/index_en.htm">European Commission</a>, the EU’s executive body. </p>
<p>But ultimately, governments have agreed to be bound by EU law – which means respecting the rulings of the ECJ, just as our government respects the rulings of the Supreme Court in the UK. If the ECJ overreaches, the governments of the member states can step in and change the rules. This has happened, for instance when the ECJ brought non-discrimination into pension provision <a href="https://g.co/kgs/uXIUC">during the 1990s</a>. The EU Treaties were amended to make clear that the ECJ rulings applied only for the future, so that pensions funds could adjust their discriminatory policies over time. Constitutionally, the ECJ cannot “grab” power in the way Gove implies.</p>
<p>Across over <a href="http://www.maastrichtjournal.eu/table_of_content.aspx?sy=2005&amp;pn=4">40 years of EU equality law</a>, the direction of travel promotes the <a href="http://www.hartpub.co.uk/books/details.asp?isbn=9781849463089">human right</a> to non-discrimination: sometimes to the benefit of men, but often to the <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2016/04/choice-women-obvious-vote-remain">benefit of women</a>, the traditionally worse-off group.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58117/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>María-Teresa Gil-Bazo has received funding from the European Union and the United Nations, as well as from the British Academy and the Basque Research Council. She acts as External Expert to the EU Asylum Agency. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tamara Hervey has received funding from the European Union, the University Association for Contemporary European Studies, the Society of Legal Scholars, the Economic and Social Research Council, Arts &amp; Humanities Research Council, Leverhulme Trust and British Academy. She is a member of the Advisory Board for the grassroots campaigning group Healthier In the EU. The views expressed in this article are not those of the research councils. </span></em></p>We asked two academics to check the claim by Michael Gove that the EU court has been grabbing power.María-Teresa Gil-Bazo, Senior Lecturer in Law, Newcastle Law School, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/457822015-08-11T04:19:54Z2015-08-11T04:19:54ZWomen are still paid less than men in South African companies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91015/original/image-20150806-5260-16ufgq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A South African woman needs to work two months more than a man to earn the equivalent salary in a year. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sharing the information on your salary slip is a taboo and most people would not open a dinner table discussion by laying bare the details of their monthly paycheque. So how can you really be sure that you are earning the same as your colleague doing the same work as you? And if you’re a woman, how can you be sure that you are earning the same as the men working in your team? </p>
<p>These questions often cross our minds but we are not sure how to go about finding out more without raising eyebrows. The Women in the Workplace research <a href="http://sabpp.co.za/the-sabpp-womens-report-2015/">programme</a> at the University of Johannesburg sets out to answer these and other gender pay-related questions.</p>
<h2>The size of the gap</h2>
<p>All too often we remain passive when faced with the unknown. Remuneration is one such unknown. What we do know is that there is a definite gender pay gap. The size of the gap depends on, among other factors, the country, industry, job role and level.</p>
<p>The South African gender pay gap is estimated, on average, to be between <a href="http://www.uj.ac.za/EN/Faculties/management/FutureFitBreakingNews/Documents/FoM%20SABPP%20Womens%20Report%202015.pdf">15%-17%</a>. This implies that a South African woman would need to work two months more than a man to earn the equivalent salary that he would earn in a year. </p>
<p>If the gap persists, a South African woman would never catch up with her male colleague. Ultimately she loses out on pension and other benefits that are coupled to her basic salary. Other than the financial losses that she incurs, the emotional fairness of the pay gap is quite difficult to accept. Employers are benefiting unduly from a historic system of undervaluing women’s skills and workplace contributions.</p>
<p>On average, South African services industries are better attuned to the needs of women. These sectors have a high percentage of women employees. Mining and other heavy industries lag behind in terms of gender pay equity. Salaries in government are, on average, better for both men and women than similar comparable jobs in the private sector. </p>
<p>How does South Africa compare with other countries? It is difficult to draw direct comparisons because of major differences between pay practices and legislative environments. But <a href="http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_324651/lang--en/index.htm">data</a> from the International Labour Organisation on global wage gaps show they range from between 4% and 36% or more. Among the developed countries, the US has the widest gap. South Africa is in the same region as Vietnam, Denmark, Spain and Italy. </p>
<p>Steps have been taken in South Africa to remedy the situation. The <a href="http://www.labour.gov.za/DOL/legislation/acts/employment-equity/employment-equity-act-and-amendments">Employment Equity Act</a> sets out the principle of equal pay for equal value. The burden now rests on human resource management practitioners to uncover potential cases of pay inequity, and to address these with innovative remedies.</p>
<h2>What’s behind the gender gap</h2>
<p>The reasons for the gender pay gap are multiple. Some would argue that it would be impossible to eradicate gender pay differences completely. Issues such as the perceived number of hours that women work and the value that is placed on their labour, like nurturing and being supportive, are not regarded as having a high economic value. </p>
<p>Women are often seen to be less loyal to the company and more likely to exit the workplace in their childbearing years. Employers may therefore perceive the long-term value that a woman would add to an organisation as lower than that of a man who does not have care obligations outside the workplace. </p>
<p>Men are therefore paid more than a woman to ensure that the company gets a greater return on the investment made in the development of an individual. </p>
<h2>Don’t be shy to ask</h2>
<p>Although it does remain difficult and highly technical to prove pay discrimination, it is heartening that a proper legal framework exists. But the interpretation of equal value in pay is sticky and uncovering gender pay differences in the same job type that also provides the same value for an employer is quite complex. </p>
<p>It all starts with the identification of a comparator, a person in a job that you think is the same as yours, substantially the same as yours, or a job that is adding the same value to the company as yours. You have to prove that the difference in pay is based on unfair discrimination. The Employment Equity Act allows for greater freedom to interpret instances that would constitute such discrimination. </p>
<p>You have the right to ask your employer about your salary in relation to other positions in your department or organisation. Your company may have a policy directive that precludes you from sharing your salary data with colleagues. If this is the case you should observe the policy. But you are still at liberty to discuss your salary with your manager, the head of payroll or human resources. </p>
<p>You are also at liberty to ask friends in other companies about their salaries and to investigate what your type of job gets paid in other workplaces. Knowledge is truly power and when it comes to pay, you should be careful of blindly trusting an organisational system.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Professor Bosch is the editor of the 2015 Women’s Report of the SA Board for People Practices.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45782/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anita Bosch receives funding from the University of Johannesburg.</span></em></p>The South African gender pay gap is estimated, on average, to be between 15% and 17%. Employers are benefiting unduly from the historic undervaluing of women’s skills and contributions.Anita Bosch, Professor of Human Resources Management , University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/438972015-07-21T10:18:35Z2015-07-21T10:18:35ZHere's how minority job seekers battle bias in the hiring process<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89083/original/image-20150720-14732-1keuujx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What&#39;s a better strategy: cast a wide net or tailor it narrowly?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Classified ad via www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Discrimination in the hiring process has limited the opportunities available to both racial minorities – such as African Americans – and women, with important consequences for their well-being and careers.</p>
<p>For example, research <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873">has shown</a> that white job applicants receive 50% more callbacks for interviews than equally qualified African American applicants. And, in the low-wage labor market, scholars <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/374403">have found</a> that African American men <em>without</em> criminal records receive similar callback rates for interviews as white men just released from prison. Researchers have also <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w5024">documented</a> discrimination in hiring against women, with particularly strong penalties against <a href="http://gender.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/motherhoodpenalty.pdf">mothers</a>.</p>
<p>But how does this reality affect these groups – African Americans and women – as they hunt for jobs? Do they tailor their searches narrowly to help them avoid discrimination, sticking to job opportunities deemed “appropriate” for them? Or do they cast a wider net with the hopes of maximizing their chances of finding a job that does not discriminate?</p>
<p>Until now, we have known little about this issue, largely because no existing data source has closely followed individuals through their job search. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/681072?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">New research</a> that we recently published in the American Journal of Sociology attempts to address this limitation by drawing on two original datasets that track job seekers and the positions to which they apply.</p>
<p>The results of our study point to three general conclusions about the job search process: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>African Americans cast a wider net than whites while searching for work</p></li>
<li><p>women tend to apply to a narrower set of job types than men, often targeting roles that have historically been dominated by women</p></li>
<li><p>past experiences of discrimination appear to drive, at least in part, the broader job search patterns of African Americans.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>On an important side note, these racial differences exist for both men and women and these gender differences exist for both whites and African Americans.</p>
<p>Let’s go into a little more detail on these three main findings.</p>
<h2>Casting a wide net</h2>
<p>Our analysis shows that African Americans apply to a greater range of job types with a broader range of occupational characteristics than similar whites. </p>
<p>For example, one of our survey respondents was previously employed as a “material moving worker.” Over the course of the survey, this respondent applied for jobs consistent with his prior work experience, such as “material handler” and “warehouse worker.” </p>
<p>However, the respondent also reported applying for jobs in retail sales, as an IT technician, a delivery driver, a security guard, a mail-room clerk and a short order cook. This respondent applied to jobs in a total of seven distinct occupations over the course of the survey, which represents a fairly broad approach to job search. </p>
<p>While this is just one example, it was typical. In both of the datasets we examined, African Americans systematically applied to a larger number of distinct job types than whites with similar levels of education and work experience. </p>
<h2>Women and self-selection</h2>
<p>Our study demonstrates that women pursued a search strategy very different than that of African Americans.</p>
<p>Women appeared to self-select into distinctive occupational categories consistent with historically gendered job types, such as office and administrative support positions. </p>
<p>During their job search, women also applied to a narrower range of occupations than men with similar education and work experience. </p>
<p>For example, women wanting to work in retail sales were more likely to apply strictly for that type of position during their job search. Men with similar aspirations, on the other hand, were more likely to branch out and apply to adjacent job types, such as wholesale, advertising or insurance sales.</p>
<h2>Past discrimination drives blacks’ behavior</h2>
<p>So what accounts for these race and gender differences in how people search for a job?</p>
<p>For African American job seekers, we found that perceptions of or experiences with racial discrimination played an important role in explaining their greater search breadth.</p>
<p>In one of the surveys we conducted, we asked job seekers about their experiences with racial discrimination at work. In our analysis, we found that individuals who reported that they had previously observed or experienced racial discrimination in the workplace were more likely to cast a wide net in their job search compared with those without such experience.</p>
<h2>A gender-segregated workforce</h2>
<p>But if discrimination, in part, drives the search behavior of African Americans, why do we not see similar adaptations by women, who also undoubtedly face employment discrimination? </p>
<p>We suspect the answer is related to the deeper and more explicit nature of gender inequality in the labor market. Occupations remain highly <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-232X.2012.00674.x/abstract;jsessionid=5977E75500AD49446A17155857B8C0A8.f01t02?userIsAuthenticated=false&amp;deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=">segregated by gender</a>, and individuals from an early age can identify male- and female-typed jobs. </p>
<p>This reality affects women’s <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/321299?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">occupational aspirations</a> as well as perceptions of the <a href="http://asr.sagepub.com/content/69/1/93.short">constraints</a> they may encounter when deviating from gendered patterns. In either scenario, women’s self-selection into female-typed occupations may allow them to avoid jobs where they are more likely to experience discrimination. At the same time, this strategy likely reproduces gender segregation at work, which is an important source of gender inequality. </p>
<p>For African Americans, things are quite different. There are far fewer readily identifiable “black” or “white” jobs. The barriers facing African American job seekers can pop up across the labor market. Thus, it is more difficult for African Americans to target jobs where they will be able to avoid discrimination. </p>
<p>But a broad job search allows black job seekers to reach otherwise difficult-to-identify job opportunities in which racial discrimination is less prevalent. Given the challenges of anticipating where and when discrimination is likely to occur, applying to a broad set of job types raises the probability that an African American job seeker will apply to a job that does not discriminate.</p>
<h2>Key consequences and takeaways</h2>
<p>Job search strategies matter and can make a big difference in everything from lifetime earnings to potential career opportunities. </p>
<p>We find that broad search is associated with being more likely to receive a job offer, but also with receiving lower wage offers. Thus, job seekers appear to face a trade-off between the goals of finding any job and finding a good job. The broader search patterns among African Americans, therefore, may reduce some of the employment gap but contribute to the long-standing racial disparity in wages. </p>
<p>Second, to the extent that broad search leads job seekers to occupations that are different from their past work experiences, this strategy may limit African Americans’ ability to build coherent careers that are consistent with their experience and aspirations. Given significant racial differences in search breadth, these dynamics are likely to contribute to persistent racial inequalities in labor market outcomes. </p>
<p>In the case of women, limiting the scope of their search likely reinforces existing patterns of occupational segregation, which has consequences for the <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2782402?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">gender earnings gap</a> and implications for other forms of persistent gender inequality.</p>
<h2>Where does this leave us?</h2>
<p>Together, the findings from our study suggest that the job search process plays an important role in shaping, reinforcing and sometimes counteracting inequality in the labor market. </p>
<p>At the same time, discrimination and other barriers to employment must be considered to fully understand how labor market inequality is generated. </p>
<p>And, as the comparison of race and gender suggests, how individuals adapt to workplace barriers can take different forms and have distinct consequences. </p>
<p>Our research points to the importance of systematically examining both job search processes as well as discriminatory behavior and other constraints in the workplace if we hope to fully understand and rectify persistent racial and gender inequalities in the labor market.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43897/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David S. Pedulla receives funding from the Russell Sage Foundation and the UC-Davis Center for Poverty Research. His previous research has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy, and the Employment Instability, Family Well-Being, and Social Policy Network.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Devah Pager receives funding from the Russell Sage Foundation. She has previously received funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health. </span></em></p>Past hiring discrimination appears to lead African Americans to cast a wide net, while women tend to seek out roles historically associated with their gender.David S. Pedulla, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology & Population Research Center, University of Texas at AustinDevah Pager, Professor of Sociology and Public Policy, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/431622015-06-15T05:12:12Z2015-06-15T05:12:12ZFootball’s unnoticed scandal: men-only competitions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84885/original/image-20150612-1438-uwskn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Time to build another locker room?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/s/men+football/search.html?page=2&amp;thumb_size=mosaic&amp;inline=144314698">Maxim Blinkov</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While the <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/interpol-ditches-fifa-deal-as-corruption-scandal-deepens/article24937656/">FIFA corruption allegations</a> have been all over the news recently, a less noted but very serious and certainly more widespread injustice has been quietly at work in the footballing world for as long as the game itself: women are effectively banned from playing professionally in men’s football teams. </p>
<p>The situation for women playing football has undoubtedly substantially improved over recent years, as we can see from the visibility of the <a href="http://www.fifa.com/womensworldcup/">Women’s World Cup</a> in Canada at the moment. Nonetheless football governing bodies, both at the national and international level, should abolish competitions that exclude women participants in principle. Not to do so is a form of gender discrimination. </p>
<p>In 2004 Maribel Dominguez agreed a two-year deal to play for Celaya, a second-division men’s Mexican club. Days later <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4110027.stm">FIFA blocked</a> her transfer, stating that “there must be a clear separation between men’s and women’s football” and observing that this transfer would contravene current rules. </p>
<p>The Football Association, which serves England and Wales, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32848757">recently raised</a> the age limit for mixed-gender teams from 16 to 18, having been <a href="http://www.clubwebsite.co.uk/news/2014/06/26/mixed-football-age-limit-raised-to-under-16s/">as low as</a> 11 years old only five years ago. The latest change brings England and Wales broadly into line with Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Italy. </p>
<p>In the case of the Dominguez transfer, the right response for FIFA would have been to change the rules to allow her to play for Celaya. And the right move by the Football Association in the UK would have been to eliminate the age restriction altogether. No competition, professional or amateur, should exclude women football players in principle. </p>
<h2>The quality argument</h2>
<p>What reasons might there be for thinking otherwise? Any adequate argument must appeal to some characteristic shared by all women and no men that is not just a difference in gender. Otherwise, the charge of gender discrimination becomes apt. </p>
<p>One <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2015765-men-vs-women-will-women-one-day-be-better-at-football-than-men">often cited reason</a> is that at the highest level, women simply aren’t as good as men at playing football. While it may be true that the average quality of a professional woman football player is lower than the average quality of her male professional counterpart, there are surely some women players who are better than some male professional players. </p>
<p>Take Brazilian football star <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/marta-21322927">Marta</a>, for instance, whose net worth is in the region of £1m and whose salary is comparable to some English Premier League players. She could certainly hold her own in some current men’s leagues. And even if it were true that no professional woman footballer was as good a player as any professional man, it should not be up to football governing bodies to veto signings on the basis of a player’s alleged insufficient quality.</p>
<h2>The safety argument</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.brunel.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/news-items/ne_302669">Another reason</a> voiced by some male professionals is that, because women are physically less powerful than men, having women play with men professionally would jeopardise their physical safety and lead to serious injury. I have also seen some men report that they would be less willing to play as physically against women as they would against other men.</p>
<p>But even if on average women were more at risk of injury, an in-principle ban on women would still not be justified. If it were, then men who are particularly prone to injury should also be barred from playing. Clearly no such ban exists, and it would be outrageous to introduce one. It would likely mean banning stellar players of the calibre of Italian international <a href="http://www.espnfc.co.uk/fiorentina/story/2389903/fiorentinas-giuseppe-rossi-wont-rush-return-from-knee-surgery">Giuseppe Rossi</a>, who has been played only half a season since October 2011 due to four serious recurring cruciate ligament injuries. </p>
<p>Any football player should be allowed to play the game even if doing so means exposing themselves to a high risk of injury, so long as they consent to the risks. And the fact that some men are unwilling to play as physically against women than against men is no reason to permit gender discrimination either. A less physical style of play is a small price to pay for gender equality.</p>
<h2>The gimmick argument</h2>
<p>Another reason for a ban might be that clubs would sign women to men’s teams as a publicity stunt. This has undoubtedly happened already. Italian Serie A side Perugia’s <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/news/perugia-to-open-talks-with-leading-ladies-1.507510">much fanfared</a>, but ultimately uncompleted, signings of Hanna Ljungberg and Victoria Svensson in 2003 are a case in point. </p>
<p>But clubs have also signed men footballers for publicity reasons in the past, quite rightly with no interference from football governing bodies. Perugia <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/3030426.stm">signed</a> Colonel Qaddafi’s son Saadi around the same time as Ljungberg and Svensson, for instance. And when Fiorentina owner Della Valle <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2006/teams/japan/5141906.stm">signed</a> Japanese star Hidetoshi Nakata towards the end of his footballing career, this was widely acknowledged to be a move made to increase the visibility of Della Valle’s shoe company to consumers in Far East markets. Again, the argument for a ban on publicity grounds falls down. </p>
<p>I go back to what I said at the beginning: preventing women who have the ability and desire to play football against men because of their gender is discrimination. For this reason, the ban should be lifted. And this viewpoint is perfectly consistent with maintaining women-only leagues, by the way. This is for the same reasons that you can have talented under-21s like Harry Kane playing for the senior England squad while still maintaining under-21 competitions. You can justify the restriction in both cases on the need to encourage and foster talent among a class of players who at the moment would not stand out to the same degree in competitions with unrestricted participation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43162/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Federico Luzzi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is no justification for banning women from men's football. The same is not true in the opposite direction, however.Federico Luzzi, Lecturer in Philosophy, University of AberdeenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/429062015-06-08T12:25:07Z2015-06-08T12:25:07ZWomen’s World Cup heralds progress, but a level playing field in football is miles off<p>With the FIFA Women’s World Cup barely underway, it has already made history. The 53,000 spectators who turned up to see hosts Canada defeat China 1-0 on June 6 was a <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/soccer/canada-to-set-attendance-record-without-kicking-a-ball-at-womens-world-cup/article24729478/">record attendance</a> for a football match on Canadian soil – and surpassed the organisers’ already high expectations. The final on July 5 in Vancouver has been sold out since April. Overall, more than 900,000 tickets have been pre-sold for the 52-game tournament, with prices ranging from C$22 to C$165 (£12 to £87). </p>
<p>This builds on what we saw at the London Olympics three years ago. As many as 70,584 spectators saw <a href="http://www.wembleystadium.com/Events/2012/Olympic-Mens-Football-Preliminary-Matches/London-2012-Olympic-Football-Great-Britain-V-Brazil-Women">Team GB beat Brazil</a> at Wembley, while the 80,203-strong crowd at <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/18914350">the final</a> between the US and Japan set a new attendance record for an Olympic women’s football final. No doubt about it, large numbers of people are now interested in women’s football and will pay to see the world’s best players in action. </p>
<h2>Playing for a cuppa</h2>
<p>Having played elite-level football at national and international level over the last 20 years, I have experienced the rocky road towards greater gender equality first hand. The crowd sizes are signs of tremendous and hard-fought progress. I vividly remember some of my German teammates <a href="http://www.wz-newsline.de/home/sport/fussball/frauen-wm-2011/deutsches-team/als-die-dfb-frauen-fuer-ein-kaffeeservice-kickten-1.685265">reminiscing about</a> the tea service they received from the German football association for winning the European Championships in 1989 (two years before the first official <a href="http://www.fifa.com/tournaments/archive/womensworldcup/chinapr1991/index.html">Women’s World Cup</a>). Had Germany won the <a href="http://www.fifa.com/tournaments/archive/womensworldcup/germany2011/">2011 World Cup</a>, the prize money would have been €60,000 per player – a significant increase, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31427562">even if</a> it pales in comparison to top male footballers’ weekly salaries. </p>
<p>Women’s football has been <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/get_involved/4246110.stm">described as</a> the fastest-growing sport on the planet. The number of teams competing in this year’s tournament has increased from 16 to 24. Goal-line technology, introduced by FIFA to its flagship men’s competition in 2012, is being used for the first time in the women’s tournament. FIFA’s broadcast production arm <a href="http://www.fifa.com/womensworldcup/news/y=2015/m=4/news=canada-set-for-biggest-ever-tv-production-in-women-s-football-2591629.html">has promised</a> the “biggest and most advanced broadcast production for a women’s football tournament”. And for the first time, all games are being covered by the BBC in the UK, Fox Sports in the US and SBS in Australia. </p>
<p>The sport has even entered the world of video gaming. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32915815">FIFA 16</a>, to be released in September this year, will feature a number of female players and teams (a move, it should be mentioned, that has been greeted with <a href="http://www.denofgeek.com/games/fifa/35584/fifa-16-womens-football-and-internet-outrage">expressions of</a> misogynist outrage by parts of the gaming community).</p>
<h2>Resistance to progress</h2>
<p>Despite all these positives, progress is often inconsistent, erratic and frequently met with fierce resistance by those keen to protect the male-dominated status quo. Here in Scotland, we have seen a number of dismissive newspaper articles in recent years. One <a href="http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/spending-12m-womens-football-isnt-1731458">suggested that</a> the Scottish FA’s £1.2m financial investment in women’s football wasn’t “justified”, because women just didn’t perform well enough and were taking money away from the men’s game – a surprising argument considering the women’s team was ranked 11th in Europe at the time, while the men’s national team was ranked 29th (on a considerably higher budget). </p>
<p>A similarly derogatory <a href="http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/tam-cowan-fir-park-should-2314034">article appeared</a> following a European women’s qualifier played at Fir Park a couple of years ago. More recently The Scottish Sun <a href="http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/sport/sportsblogs/6396163/Senior-womens-football-will-never-be-popular-so-says-my-wife.html?CMP=spklr-Editorial-TWITTER-scotsunsport-20150403-SunScotNews-164384987">published a piece</a> reminding the reader that “women’s football will never be popular”. This was <a href="http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/glasgow-city-draw-french-side-4656325">just after</a> Glasgow City FC had made history as the first Scottish team of either gender to ever reach the quarter finals of the UEFA Champions League (against Paris St-Germain, which they lost 5-0). The women’s national team had also reached its highest ever rankings at the time (19th in the world and 11th in Europe).</p>
<p>Gender inequality and sexist attitudes continue to permeate all elements of the game and all levels of its organisational structure. After all, the FIFA president <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/3402519.stm">who proposed</a> tighter and more feminine clothing for players in 2004 as a key strategy for improving the profile of the women’s game was still in charge of world football’s governing body <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/sepp-blatter/11647345/Sepp-Blatter-resigns-Reaction-to-Fifa-presidents-shock-departure.html">until</a> just a few days ago.</p>
<p>This is also an organisation whose first female executive-committee member, Lydia Nsekera, was appointed as recently as 2013. And other football executive bodies fare little better: Karen Esplund is the only female member of the UEFA executive committee; Heather Rabbats became the first woman on the board of the English FA in 2011; and there are no women on the Scottish FA’s board. </p>
<h2>Pitch imperfect</h2>
<p>One very controversial issue surrounding the Canada World Cup gives another glimpse of the fundamental differences between men’s and women’s football. The tournament is taking place on artificial grass, which is utterly unthinkable for any elite men’s competition. Artificial turf is cheaper and easier to maintain, but players often feel that it changes the nature, flow and overall quality of the game. </p>
<p>In October 2014 a coalition of 84 players from 13 different countries <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/29453614">filed a lawsuit</a> against FIFA and the Canadian Soccer Association claiming that these pitches amounted to gender discrimination. It was was led by some of the most prominent names in the women’s game, including US captain Abby Wambach, German goalkeeper Nadine Angerer, Spain’s Vero Boquete and French international Camille Abily. Perhaps unsurprisingly, however, <a href="http://espn.go.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/12205330/abby-wambach-players-withdraw-women-world-cup-lawsuit-use-artificial-turf">it was dropped</a> earlier this year as a number of players withdrew when pressured by their national associations. FIFA’s stalling tactics had also meant that the case was unlikely to go to court before the start of the tournament. (The one silver lining: the 2019 tournament <a href="http://www.fifa.com/womensworldcup/news/y=2015/m=3/news=france-to-host-the-fifa-women-s-world-cup-in-2019-2567761.html">in France</a> is to take place on grass.) </p>
<p>In short, women’s football remains in a precarious position. Things are progressing, but football remains a largely male-dominated domain. Developments towards gender equality in one area are often accompanied by frustrating setbacks in others. The Canada World Cup gives us much to celebrate, but it is hard to shake the sense that until we see substantive shifts in how football is organised and governed, and how women’s football is perceived, we are still a long way from where we need to be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42906/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katharina played women&#39;s international football at Under-21 level for Germany</span></em></p>Women's football has come a long way, but it is still some distance from competing with the men's game.Katharina Lindner, Lecturer in Film and Media, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/411102015-05-05T15:45:52Z2015-05-05T15:45:52ZHow we can break free from sexism in science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80421/original/image-20150505-10605-ffv8nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">No really, it&#39;s fine!</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-238109398/stock-photo-indifferent-man-overloading-colleague-woman-with-work.html?src=csl_recent_image-1">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two women recently had their <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/sexist-peer-review-causes-storm-online/2020001.article">research paper rejected</a> by a science journal based on an incredibly sexist review of their work – an event that has caused outrage on social media. While the journal, PLOS ONE, has apologised and given the authors a second chance, not everyone is as lucky. </p>
<p>The case provides an opportunity for journals to adopt an open peer-review system – a process in which scientists evaluate the quality of other scientists’ work – so that reviewers cannot hide behind anonymity. But it also shows it is time to get tough on the widespread biases in universities.</p>
<p>Peer-reviewed publications are the main currency for academics. It is through such publications that academics tell the world about their latest research findings. Decisions about hiring – and academic career progression – are also made largely on an academic’s publication record. The main purpose of peer review is to act as quality control, making sure the work is technically sound before a paper is made available to the public. </p>
<p>Peer review is clearly something that we need to get right. Ask any researcher though, and you would be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t had an unhappy review experience.</p>
<h2>Unreported numbers?</h2>
<p>Occasionally we see dramatic examples of malpractice. In the most <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/sexist-peer-review-causes-storm-online/2020001.article">recent case</a>, a paper that investigated gender biases in academia based on a survey of PhD students in the life sciences was rejected by PLOS ONE on the basis of a single review. The review was a tirade of undisguised sexism, which suggested that the authors had misinterpreted the results because they are women. It concluded: “It would probably also be beneficial to find one or two male biologists to work with … in order to serve as a possible check against interpretations that may sometimes be drifting too far away from empirical evidence.” </p>
<p>In this case, multiple aspects of the peer-review system failed. The academic editor assigned to the paper was an immunologist, whereas the paper was in the social sciences, bringing into question the editor’s expertise and ability to choose suitable reviewers. Another problem was that only a single review was obtained – usually two or three reviewers are sought to try to obtain balance. It also seems that the editor had not carefully read the review and/or paper, as the review was forwarded without criticism. The editor’s rejection note read:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The qulaity (sic) of the manuscript is por (sic) with issues on methodologies and presentation of resulst (sic). A precise bibliographic search will be useful to improve the manuscript. A clear summary of the issues concerning the quality of this manuscript is given by one reviewer.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Rightly, the journal has issued an apology, the paper is back under review and the original editor and reviewer are <a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/scientific-community/2015/04/sexist-peer-review-elicits-furious-twitter-response">no longer on the books</a>. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80423/original/image-20150505-16612-1od0g62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip">
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<span class="caption">There may be a number of unreported cases out there.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?searchterm=scientific%20journals&amp;autocomplete_id=14308232175764679000&amp;language=en&amp;lang=en&amp;search_source=&amp;safesearch=1&amp;version=llv1&amp;media_type=&amp;media_type2=images&amp;search_cat=&amp;searchtermx=&amp;photographer_name=&amp;people_gender=&amp;people_age=&amp;people_ethnicity=&amp;people_number=&amp;color=&amp;page=1&amp;inline=202908463">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>But while this case was corrected, <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/catferguson/women-scientists-share-their-stories-of-sexism-in-publishing">many are not</a>. A similar level of online rage was directed at the Royal Society which earlier this year awarded only two of 43 fellowship grants to female applicants. By their own admission, this bias appears to be <a href="http://blogs.royalsociety.org/in-verba/2014/09/24/gender-balance-among-university-research-fellows/">getting worse</a> each year.</p>
<h2>The bigger picture</h2>
<p>These recent examples speak of gender biases that are routinely found in academia, whether in <a href="http://www.albany.edu/%7Escifraud/data/sci_fraud_3943.html">grant allocation</a>, <a href="http://curt-rice.com/2014/03/18/where-women-dont-belong-2-strategies-you-and-i-both-use-to-keep-women-out-of-science/">hiring</a>, <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.long">mentoring</a>, <a href="http://www.academic.umn.edu/wfc/rec%20letter%20study%202009.pdf">reference letters</a>, <a href="http://aei.pitt.edu/46079/1/she_figures_2009.pdf">salaries</a>, <a href="http://sciencenordic.com/gender-bias-leading-journals">invited journal articles</a> or even <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10755-014-9313-4">student feedback</a>. </p>
<p>We also know that gender biases are only the tip of the iceberg – in particular remarkably little attention is given to racial discrimination. There are substantially fewer studies on racial bias in academia, but there are similar examples of <a href="http://cloakinginequity.com/2012/10/15/racial-bias-in-peer-review/">dubious peer review</a> and there is evidence of racism in <a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/222569225_Is_there_racism_in_economic_research">article citations</a> and <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2063742">willingness to mentor students</a> simply based on name.</p>
<p>We must use these cases to look at how we can improve the situation. Many journals (including PLOS ONE) operate a single-blind review system where the reviewer can see the authors’ names, but the authors never see the reviewer’s name. In some disciplines double-blind review is standard, where the authors’ names are hidden from the reviewers. </p>
<p>This approach does address some of the problems, but in practice it is often possible to guess who the authors are. Some <a href="http://peerj.com/blog/post/43139131280/the-reception-to-peerjs-open-peer-review/">journals</a> now offer open review, where reviewers sign their comments with their name and/or the review is made publicly accessible. A further step still is to have post-publication review, where all articles are first published and then peer review occurs in public. Indeed <a href="http://blogs.royalsociety.org/publishing/fssc-peer-review-with-elizabeth-marincola/">PLOS ONE recently announced</a> that they are aiming to move towards open review. </p>
<p>Besides innovations in the peer-review system, we must also all look in the mirror. The system is made up of individuals. It is us who are biased. Studies show that women are <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.long">no less likely to discriminate against women</a> – and those of under-represented races are <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2063742">no less likely to have racial biases</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases">Cognitive biases are so numerous and universal</a> that at the very least we should <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22822416">make ourselves aware</a> of how deeply they can run. <a href="https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/uk/">Online tests</a> of implicit bias are a great way to start gaining some self-awareness. Institutional <a href="http://sitemaker.umich.edu/advance/stride_committee">training</a> and national <a href="http://eng.kifinfo.no/">programmes</a> to address biases will undoubtedly also help.</p>
<p>In academia, strong hierarchies and nepotism compound problems associated with biases. For faster change, each and every one of us need to act as exemplars – admitting to our own mistakes, calling out those of others and <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/acv.12032/full">monitoring biases in journals</a> and institutions.</p>
<p>The stakes are higher than most of us realise. Biases in academia <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141107-gender-studies-women-scientific-research-feminist/">distort research outcomes – and can even damage human health</a>. If we continue to ignore our biases then we will continue to stifle the insight we could be gaining from a more diverse set of collaborators. Ultimately we all suffer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41110/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amber Griffiths currently receives funding from an EU Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship, and the Natural Environment Research Council. She is an academic editor at PLoS ONE (but has not been directly involved in the case discussed), and a former colleague of Ingleby and Head (the submitted article authors) and so has seen the full review.</span></em></p>Sexist peer review case sheds light on the need to tackle gender and racial discrimination in universities.Amber Griffiths, Lecturer in Natural Environment, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/408212015-05-03T19:34:38Z2015-05-03T19:34:38ZVideo games make you less sexist? It's not quite that simple<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80030/original/image-20150501-30696-1uct8hj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One narrowly defined study isn&#39;t enough to prove that people who play video games are less sexist.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">JD Hancock/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The latest article exploring sexism in academia suggests that <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360.abstract">it no longer exists</a>. Some have already grumbled about <a href="http://othersociologist.com/2015/04/16/myth-about-women-in-science/">flaws in the study’s design</a>. But more than that, I simply don’t believe the finding because there is clear evidence that <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/04/30/sexism-in-science-peer-editor-tells-female-researchers-their-study-needs-a-male-author/">sexism still exists</a>. </p>
<p>I’ve also recently heard numerous times via Twitter that playing video games <a href="http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2014.0492">makes you less sexist</a>. But I don’t believe that finding either.</p>
<p>This isn’t because either study is poorly designed, or because the samples are biased, or even that the researchers had ulterior motives. I don’t believe either of these studies because no explanation in biology is that simple. Especially when it comes to humans.</p>
<p>Our desire for answers to fall into simplified categories is leading to a more fundamental problem: it’s fuelling the segregation of ideas and breeding public distrust in scientists. And this is bad for everyone.</p>
<h2>Research supports my opinion</h2>
<p>With the <a href="https://scholar.google.com.au/">internet</a> at our fingertips, it is not hard to hunt down a piece of research that will support our worldview.</p>
<p>Arguing with someone about how video games make you sexist? Cite <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563213002525">this paper</a>, or <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11199-009-9695-4">this one</a> or even bring up <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/ppm/4/1/47/">this paper</a>. Trying to convince someone that video games <em>don’t</em> make you sexist? No problem! Cite this <a href="http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2014.0492">new paper</a>, because surely the most recent research must be most correct.</p>
<p>Then when the articles you cite fail to convince your opponent, you can get down to the nitty-gritty and argue about sample size and experimental design, citing superior knowledge of statistics (this is an argument I commonly receive).</p>
<p>But neither improved statistics nor a doubling of sample size will improve the quality of the questions asked. Let’s take a simple everyday example.</p>
<p>If I leave milk on my front stoop overnight in Sydney during the summer, it’ll spoil before the next morning. We might thus conclude that not refrigerating milk results in spoiling. But that’s not entirely accurate, because if I did the same in Toronto in the winter, the milk would be fine (or maybe even freeze).</p>
<p>It’s not the lack of refrigeration that resulted in the milk spoiling, but the fact that it was not kept at the proper temperature. At a certain point, oversimplifying ideas results in the loss of the crux of the problem and a focus on the refrigerator rather than the temperature.</p>
<h2>Are gamers really more sexist?</h2>
<p>Let’s jump back to the video game paper for a minute. The question the researchers asked is whether playing video games over the long term can affect sexist attitudes.</p>
<p>The argument is that because female characters are <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11199-009-9637-1">underrepresented</a>, and both sexes are <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11199-007-9307-0">overly sexualized in videogames</a>, these factors can interact to normalise <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11199-007-9278-1">sexist views</a>. This hypothesis was previously supported in <a href="http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/g4h.2014.0055">short</a> and <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103108001005">long-term</a> studies.</p>
<p>In this recent study, the researchers used 824 German adolescents to explore whether continued exposure to video games can affect sexist attitudes over the long term. The participants provided information on how often they played video games, and answered a questionnaire on their sexist attitudes. Three years later, they asked the same students the same questions.</p>
<p>The authors found that individuals that spent more time playing video games were less sexist. I’ve had this result mentioned to me several times. Interestingly, the part of the paper where the authors admit that the effect size was tiny (meaning that the likelihood that this has a real-world effect is low) is never highlighted.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80031/original/image-20150501-30696-1tl5caf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80031/original/image-20150501-30696-1tl5caf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<span class="caption">Women are often represented in an overly sexualised manner in video games. But does that make gamers more sexist?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Square Enix</span></span>
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<p>Does this result trump all the earlier research (experimental or correlative) that shows that video games can reinforce sexist attitudes? No. What it does do is muddy the waters, demonstrating that the association is not that simple.</p>
<p>But, rather than focusing on the result, we should refocus our attention on the question. If we think about it more closely, the authors are not asking whether video games make adolescents sexist, they’re asking something completely different. </p>
<p>They’re asking whether playing video games affects the sexist attitudes adolescents openly admit to having. And that the video games have more influence on their attitudes than their daily interactions with parents, teachers, friends and peers. Except that they ignored any of these social factors by not including them in the study.</p>
<p>The idea that video games alone can make you anything other than good at “video game-like things” is rather silly. However, through their imagery and player agency, video games may be able to reinforce certain worldviews associated with aggression, dominance and sexism that stem from the social environment individuals occupy.</p>
<p>But that is a completely different and more complex question that the video game literature – and most others – largely does not examine.</p>
<h2>Where should science go from here?</h2>
<p>The problem of oversimplification is not limited to the video game literature or studies of human behaviour. It exists in any field where there is diversity and variation.</p>
<p>For example, there are papers showing resveratrol in wine is <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7117/full/nature05354.html">good for you</a>, while others show <a href="http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1868537">no effect at all</a>. Some papers show early morning risers are clearly <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3399900/">happier and more productive</a> than late risers, and others suggest maybe Ben Franklin was <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/324/5926/516.abstract?sid=b98bee97-90dd-4f18-9f9b-a3e7ce0ebcde">wrong on that one</a>.</p>
<p>Categorising complex ideas only serves to create cult-like tribes and promotes between-group misunderstanding and animosity. This needs to stop. And all of us need to play our part.</p>
<p>As researchers, it’s fine to explore a question using correlations, as this helps to identify the factors that may be important. That’s only a start, though. Those correlations should be used as a springboard for future experiments that build in greater complexity. It’s irresponsible to leave <a href="https://theconversation.com/clearing-up-confusion-between-correlation-and-causation-30761">correlation looking like causation</a>, and we need to admit the complexity of the world we are exploring.</p>
<p>The media also needs to stop simplifying ideas and presenting them as being black and white. The average individual can understand a complex topic if explained properly. Journalists should strive to provide information on previous studies if they’re reporting new findings. Explaining changes in scientific thought will leave readers with more questions, only serving to whet their appetite for more science and research.</p>
<p>And it’s up to readers to avoid hiding behind selected publications that <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/confirmation_bias.htm">reinforce their worldviews</a>. We can benefit from reading other perspectives, and when we do so, do it with an open mind. We should engage in discussion with individuals with opposing views, not just dive in to arguments and name calling, as this only serves to isolate ourselves from one another.</p>
<p>Once we can all admit that the world is more complex than we’d like to believe, we can finally get to exploring all the various facets that makes the world the wonderful and horrible place that it is.</p>
<p>So after reading <a href="http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2014.0492">this paper</a>, do I believe that video games make us less sexist? Nope. And I don’t believe that they make us more sexist either. Nothing is quite that simple.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40821/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Kasumovic receives funding from the Australian Research Council for his evolutionary research.</span></em></p>Academic papers are often cherry picked to support our prevailing views. We need to be careful to acknowledge the complexities of many issues explored by science.Michael Kasumovic, Evolutionary Biologist, ARC Future Fellow, UNSWLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/384472015-03-06T17:25:23Z2015-03-06T17:25:23ZWhy there are so many women managers, but so few women CEOs<p>The number of women in paid employment has <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/Event/Gender/GenderAtWork_web2.pdf">risen significantly over the past 40 years</a>. In developed countries especially, there are increasing numbers of women reaching top positions in different fields of work. And new research shows how <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/international/21645759-boys-are-being-outclassed-girls-both-school-and-university-and-gap">girls are doing far better than boys educationally</a> across the world.</p>
<p>For all this good news for gender equality, however, some of the latest reviews of women and work across the globe reveals that on virtually every measure available, women suffer greater economic exclusion than men. Women’s earnings are significantly less than men’s – <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/Event/Gender/GenderAtWork_web2.pdf">on average between 10% and 30% less globally</a> and the jobs available to women across the world remain segregated.</p>
<h2>Glass walls</h2>
<p>In many countries there are obvious limits to what work women are allowed to do – for example places where women require permission from their husbands to work and/ or where they are concentrated in poor quality jobs. Women are concentrated in certain roles and limited to specific management functions in a way that is indicative of the “glass walls” phenomenon, which is occupational segregation by gender.</p>
<p>When examining differences in workplace opportunity, management roles are useful indicators of equality. Becoming a manager or senior executive offers the largest chance to achieve economic equality and to influence access for other women in the labour market. </p>
<p>To be selected for top management jobs, it is necessary to have diverse experience across different company areas. As long as women are boxed into certain roles, this will not happen – hence the need to break down glass walls before women can break through the glass ceiling to top management.</p>
<h2>A closer look at the numbers</h2>
<p>A <a href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_334882.pdf">recent ILO report</a> reveals women hold 50% of middle management positions. But that is as far as equality extends, as less than 5% of CEOs of publicly listed companies in OECD countries are women and just 2.8% in the European Union. The UK’s Chartered Management Institute <a href="http://www.managers.org.uk/%7E/media/Angela%20Media%20Library/pdfs/CMI%20Talent%20Pipeline%20White%20Paper.pdf">reveals a gendered pyramid</a> that is mirrored worldwide, with women holding positions as 60% of junior managers, 40% of middle managers, 20% at senior levels and single digits at CEO. </p>
<p>There is also some obfuscation around women on senior boards, with women on boards reaching just over 20% in Northern European countries and less than 5% in the Middle East, Southern Europe, and Russia. But there is a lack of clarity on whether women hold executive or non-executive roles. </p>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<p>Recent research on FTSE 100 companies reveals a twist in the good news tale of increased female representation on company boards. The rise in numbers is concentrated in non-executive directors – <a href="http://www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/ftse">from 806 in 2013 to 826 in 2014</a>, with a decline in the number of executive directors <a href="http://www.raeng.org.uk/publications/other/the-female-ftse-board-report-2014">from 307 in 2013 to 291 in 2014</a>. This is significant because non-executive directors stand back from the day-to-day running of the company. They do not have the same significant presence as executive directors, who can act as mentors and agents of change.</p>
<h2>Boxed in</h2>
<p>Management is now a profession where women are taking a significant share of positions and diversity is declared as good for business. The numbers of women in middle management and not in the top echelons is a result of women being boxed into certain roles and not necessarily for the right reasons. </p>
<p>In management, women are classified as having the right people skills, able to tap into female consumer power and adept at extracting employee commitment. The result is that women managers tend to have roles that are classified as female specialisms – offering less pay, prestige and career promotion opportunities.</p>
<p>The ILO demonstrate how jobs such as human resource management, PR and communication are almost entirely female dominated. In functional areas such as finance, research, operations, and general management, women managers remain a much smaller minority. This is particularly important in the context of the generalist character of senior management, where women appear to be excluded through lack of necessary experience.</p>
<h2>Continued inequality</h2>
<p>This separation into defined roles is the modern-day continuation of historical biases regarding their disposition and capacity to lead. It also reflects a certain degree of self-selection, as women choose to enter roles where they feel they fit. This, however, is inevitably influenced by the environment they grow up in – a lifetime’s experience of expectations to behave in a certain way – as well as the reality of acting as society’s carers. </p>
<p>It’s clear that the position of women in the global labour market is not a simple reflection of their actual skills and career choices. It is a product of institutionalised exclusion which, although allowing the mass entry of women to certain occupations, is responsible for keeping them unequally positioned economically.</p>
<p>If, we do not face up to this, progress toward equality for women in the workplace will continue to be glacial. Unless action is taken, the ILO forecasts that it could be <a href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_334882.pdf">up to 200 years</a> before women achieve parity with men at management level globally. Nor can developed countries claim the moral high ground, as we look forward to another 80 years before we might enjoy equal opportunities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38447/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sharon C. Bolton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The glass ceiling is as present as ever, with women increasingly getting boxed into certain roles.Sharon C. Bolton, Professor of Organisational Analysis, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/363102015-01-16T13:02:26Z2015-01-16T13:02:26ZHouse of Lords wakes up to sexism in the newsroom<p>I have spent the past 20 years researching and writing about women in the media. This was initially sparked off by how I was reported on when I stood as a councillor, with more attention paid to my Doc Martens and single-studded ear lobe than my views on the lack of bed availability at my local hospital. </p>
<p>What I recognised then is that there are different rules for women and men, not only as subjects of news but also in the different pathways they are strongly encouraged along when they enter news industries. Those many years of research have now been backed up by the House of Lords, in a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30835704">report</a> produced by their Communications Committee. </p>
<p>The report finds that “despite the fact that women make up just over half the population, they are underrepresented, both as staff and as experts, in news and current affairs broadcasting.” Its authors also express their concern about “the evidence we heard suggesting that discrimination against women, particularly older women, still exists in the industry.”</p>
<h2>Powerful women</h2>
<p>Women are succeeding in many previously male-dominated spheres. According to Forbes magazine, Angela Merkel is the third most powerful person in the world of either sex, both IBM and General Motors have women CEOs and Janet Yelland was appointed first woman to head the US Reserve Bank in 2013. And although we might read news stories about these women, the folks who pen the prose are mostly men. </p>
<p>When Barack Obama recently held a press conference exclusively for women reporters, it made headline news around the globe, but no one bats an eyelid when the vast majority of journalists pushing and shoving their mics in front of the great and good use the urinals rather than the women’s room when it’s time for a comfort break. </p>
<p>Of course, this context-setting is only so much fish and chip paper, which is why I’m so pleased that the the chair of the Lords inquiry, Lord Best, makes such <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/lords-select/communications-committee/news/wncab-report-publication/">trenchant comments</a> about the marginalisation of women both in front of and behind the camera. In his words: “The situation is simply not good enough.” </p>
<h2>Same old story</h2>
<p>I gave <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-committees/communications/women-in-news-and-current-affairs-broadcasting/WNCABEvidence.pdf">oral and written evidence</a> to that inquiry almost three months ago and, together with <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/suzanne-franks-107489">Professor Suzanne Franks</a> made very clear what the problems are and what needs to change in order to address them. </p>
<p>I am therefore rather pleased to see some of my own interventions such as reviving the Broadcast Equality and Training Regulator to monitor the media sector’s performance in pursuing a gender equality agenda and including an explicit commitment to and evidence of gender equality as part of the commissioning criteria for tenders and pitches, making their way into the report and recommendations.</p>
<p>But to be honest, the findings from my research and almost all the studies which have been undertaken on the topic over the past couple of decades have all said the same thing. They all tell the same exclusionary story of women’s marginalisation: news and current affairs broadcasting is dominated by mostly white, middle-class men talking to each about men’s stuff – you know the sort of thing, politics, the economy. Oh, wait a minute, isn’t that what Angela and Janet are so good at as well? </p>
<p>So maybe it’s not that all men are concerned about terrorism and the euro while all women are fascinated by fashion and Kim Kardashian’s bottom. Maybe it’s the news media that’s shaping discourse that way, by deciding on who should be invited to talk and whose voices are silenced.</p>
<h2>Endemic sexism</h2>
<p>The report’s recommendations send out important signals to the broadcasters (and especially the BBC) that they have been watched and found wanting, and are now being called to account. </p>
<p>Lord Best and his colleagues stop short of identifying endemic sexism as the reason why women are under-represented in the decision-making strata of media organisations, why only <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-more-excuses-for-the-lack-of-women-experts-on-air-26526">one in every four expert contributors</a> to flagship news programmes are women, why there has never been a woman director-general at the BBC. But some of us do not share such reticence. </p>
<p>It is very hard to believe that the reason why women rarely make it to the top of the media tree is because they lack talent, drive or ambition, especially since women graduates are <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/men-in-higher-education-the-numbers-dont-look-good-guys/2011807.article">more numerous</a>, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8085011.stm">better qualified</a> and <a href="http://www.iwmf.org/our-research/global-report/">enter media industries in greater numbers than men.</a> Something happens to them when they try to develop a career – and that same something happens to women in other industries and other professions. Yes, some of them have babies and, yes, some of them take career breaks – but not all of them – and then again, so do men. </p>
<p>Some front-of-camera women get pushed out when the first wrinkle or grey hair puts in an unwelcome appearance, like <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2912501/BBC-culture-biased-against-older-women-Report-criticises-industry-sexist-attitude-singles-corporation-having-biggest-obligation-improve.html">Selina Scott</a> and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/bbc/11349310/BBC-had-an-informal-policy-to-discriminate-against-older-women-say-peers.html">Miriam O’Reilly</a> (obviously not a deal-breaker for some of their septuagenarian male colleagues), but many leave because of what they experience as an unwelcoming working environment. </p>
<p>To paraphrase Van Morrison, we know exactly <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u23TarZQ5f8">what’s wrong with this picture</a>, but the challenge is what to do about it. The House of Lords report is a long-overdue step in the right direction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36310/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Ross does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>I have spent the past 20 years researching and writing about women in the media. This was initially sparked off by how I was reported on when I stood as a councillor, with more attention paid to my Doc…Karen Ross, Professor of Media, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.